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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[so it is him. it is the man with the ranger's face, with his tone but not his speech, his hair, or his clothes. nikolai luzhin, that was his name. and this one also remembrs him, it seems, which.. is fortunate. he'd like not to meet with steel again, if they have been brought here with him.

but when does he remember him from, and where? there are many worlds where two may meet, if his own experience are anything to speak of. who is to say this one is from the city at all?

and he does not remember spilling any blood. his own, in any case.]

That is rather rude of him. [he pulls his hand back to his side, no longer hesitant, though still cautious and unsure. how does one confirm such a thing in a world (or worlds, as it may be) where meeting duplicates is possible? shall it be left alone, to be decided at a later time? shall he pretend not to know him?

(which, to be honest, is mostly the truth. he does not know this man.)

he tips his head as well, if not in the same direction.]

How do you know this Elf, Nikolai Luzhin?

[ 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. ]

[he forgets at times that this is a different age, that these people are from different ages. that they may not speak westron (or english, or whatever their common tongue is), that their phrases are different. he forgets when he asks how, what he means is different from what they may think it means.

that there are people like nikolai, liars and pretenders, dangerous, who know the play on words, the games, the wariness and caution.]

He was impatient. He asked for a knife and bled himself out. [if his words carry weight, he does not know it. for him it is only a game, only habit. just like reaching out to pluck at the dried patch of red on nikolai's jacket, despite what he does and doesn't know. rubs his fingers together and squints at the tips.] Blood may be washed out.. unless it is too old and dried.

How long is the tale he would tell of a city without a Sun?

[come on legolas can't you just ask how many months he was in abax. seriously. do we have to keep doing this.]

[ How long is it? Nikolai isn't entirely sure. Time is a nebulous thing when you don't have a sun to tell it. There's something unnatural in that. In the North there are more deaths - from murders and suicides both - during winter than any time else. When there is no sun, there is cold, there is death, and there is no more time.

Nikolai shrugs. ]

Some months. [ He laughs at how short it is. It seems fucking stupid, so goddamned fucking stupid, to be half-mourning about the memories he shares with Legolas when those months are not even a fraction of the Elf's lifetime.

Nikolai doesn't like feeling that he's becoming the needy one. He never has. There's something egoistical about it, watching the way Kirill crawl towards him and wrap himself around Nikolai's leg, and Nikolai knows it just takes the smallest move to kick him in the teeth. Like a dog.

He laughs ago. ] Long enough to remember you speak like strange person [ Pause. He doesn't let Legolas reply - he already knows what Legolas will say, they have walked that line of conversation before.

Instead he lifts his shirt, showing the dried blood stains. ]

I know also you lived long. Long enough to know how to get blood out of this? [ He's going to burn the clothes anyway. But Nikolai likes irony, and there's plenty of irony in the idea of working hard to clean clothes only to burn it. ]

[some months. still so small an amount in his mind, but likely some substantial amount for another. years may pass between visits to esgaroth or dale, and while children become men and women and parents of their own, an elf would remain the same, unaware of the time passed. it's a bit different in this case, but... all the same.]

Some? [hmmm.] ..I recall only two.

[even if nikolai doesn't seem to be the type to cling to memories like that, he feels it only courteous to let him know. but he supposes it's a good thing to not be the one who knows more than the other, for once.

he raises an eyebrow but does not make any reply, both because he has none and because nikolai is suddenly holding up his shirt. at first he only looks at it curiously, wondering why he would want it washed-- they're frugal with clothes in mirkwood.. but even elves have their limits. at length, he reaches out again, to see if it is the same as nikolai's jacket.]

..We use soaproot sometimes. And I have heard that salt will do, if you have any to spare, but cold water would be enough. If it is not more than several days old, there should not be much issue removing it.

[ No, Nikolai isn't the type. He's always the one leaving, shifting, the one pretending not to remember unless it serves him to. It's part of the job. Leave nothing behind except what is strictly necessary. He knows how to blend in, how to stick out, how to, in short, not be himself.

What does that mean, he isn't even sure nowadays. Nikolai is know what being human means. He knows that it's what he wants to be. But 'wants to be' is different from 'is', and he thinks it's been too long since he understands 'is'. 'Should be' is so much easier, so much more fitting.

There are spy movies he watched, from America, in which the spies are so overt and obvious, giving their names everywhere they go, and Nikolai gets a special kick out of it. It's so much wish fulfillment fantasy, he knows, but knowing doesn't mean that he can change it.

He scrapes his nail over the edge of the stain, turning it round and round. ]

Cold water and salt. [ He laughs quietly. ] Plenty of salt around, until people have to be told to eat less of it, because it makes them sick. [ His grin widens, just so very slightly. ]

Almost disappointed, that you don't have some magical cure for blood. [ He waves a hand. ] You should.

[magic. somehow, legolas isn't surprised. it isn't incorrect, anyway; they do have some amount of magic in mirkwood, but.. not like the kind other worlds seem to have. it's still strange (saddening, really) to think of a world where magic is a myth, something that doesn't exist anymore, or what what is believed of them are paltry things, like washing out blood.]

There you have it, then. And I am sure there are.. chemicals [vague.. gesture.] that may be useful as well, though I know now what they would be.

[he shrugs then, after a moment of contemplation and inspecting of the stains.]

..If it is magic you seek, I might be able to burn it. But is washing so terrible a task?

[ No, there's no difference in Legolas at all. Whether it is in a city of darkness or of rain, there is Legolas, and he's still strange, irreverent, knowing of the strangest things and unknowing of the most common. Nikolai looks at him, his lips quirked up almost involuntarily into a smile.

It's almost comforting to know that the not-elf doesn't change. That there's something familiar. (When has Legolas become familiar?)

He shrugs again. ]

Would probably burn it. [ Wryly. ][ Is washing a terrible task? It isn't, not really, but why tell Legolas the truth when making something up creates a far more interesting reaction? ]

Don't have time for washing. Throw most things away when it gets dirty.

[slow to accept and slow to change. he's lived over 600 years. 8 months in a floating metal death trap is the least of things that would affect him.]

..That is a waste. If the fabric is not thinned and there are no holes, it is better to wash and use it again. [marginally disapproving expression. this coming from someone who is used to clothes made by his own people and thus not easily thrown out for something as small as a blood stain. unless it was drenched in it.]

Are there not machines of some sort that will wash it for you? [he's seen it. on the ship. it exists he knows it does. not that he's ever used it, but people bring in piles of clothes and leave with clean ones. it isn't hard to figure out.]

[ Now they're talking about washing machines, and Nikolai wonders how Legolas knows of it. There aren't any in Abax - in a city without lights and where food has to be foraged, washing machines are a luxury that he hasn't thought much of. He blinks, cocks his head to the side. ]

Da. Plenty. [ The words are quiet, soft, a little curious- but his eyes are piercing, narrowed as they stare into Legolas's eyes as if he can find all the answers he needs just by staring. ]

How do you know about those?

[some days he looks back on what he's learned from his time in all these different worlds. plastic, mannequins, cars, streelights, space, science, hydroponics-- and whether it makes him any less.. elvish. unchanged, but still changed. is it so strange to hear these words coming from his mouth, when they are all but the norm in these times?

probably.

he takes a moment of silence, staring back unblinkingly and unfazed. he's had worse from elves far older than he. the only answers nikolai will be finding are mild, dancing amusement.]

I was sent elsewhere for some months, after Abax.

[ The amusement reminds him of something else that he hates about Legolas - that he is impossible to disconcert, that the reactions that Nikolai is so used to getting from people, all the techniques he knows to send them fumbling and stumbling over their own feet, have no use on him.

But then again, that might be why he likes the elf in the first place. Why he keeps talking to him. ]

Somewhere else. [ Nikolai chuckles quietly. ] Obviously not home, so where? [ Beat. ]

Don't remember you leaving.

[perhaps if legolas was younger, nikolai would have more luck unsettling him. perhaps, if he had not been raised among woodelves, or elves in general.. or if he had any inclination to alter the truth of his words, rather than just leaving out bits and pieces and hoping none are curious enough to ask for the entirety of it.

which never seems to be the case with nikolai, apparently.]

I do not remember returning. [since it sounds as though he's been in abax with nikolai for several months.. after he supposedly left. but he tips his head to the side as though to study nikolai from another angle (or to gauge his reaction), idly, as he decides how to answer.]

..A vessel, sailing among the stars. They called it a space ship.

[ Nikolai can't help but snort, evidently amused. He knows what he's going to say will most likely fly over Legolas's head entirely, but there's pleasure and amusement in that as well. ]

Your life sounds like fantasy novel changed into science fiction movie. [ Snorts. ] Elf in city without sun, then Elf in space.

[ He might be a little bit too amused by this. Nikolai ducks his head to hide his smile - it's habit by now - and he chuckles again as he lights another cigarette. ]

You remember blood in water? [ The sirens. Nikola repaying the favour. ]

[..it does go over his head. mostly. words like fantasy and novel he knows, and science is something he is.. slowly beginning to understand. space.]

Such is life. [shrugs, no more than a roll of a shoulder. even if the full meaning is lost on him, he can still agree that it is amusing. less so, in his opinion, but... it is, in a way.

he doesn't know what nikolai means, however, by blood in water. he knows only the lake in the park, and never any blood in it. though it's rare for an elf to forget things like that, he takes a moment to try, anyway. in case he did somehow overlook such an event.]

..Nay, I do not. Would you that I did?

[ It's obvious enough that Legolas won't know what he's talking about. Nikolai knows that already, the knowledge sinking itself into his chest and winding around his heart. But he's rather a fool in that he always like believing in hope.

That kind of tendency will get him killed one day, he knows that full well. Still. Nikolai looks up, and he shrugs. ]

Then I still owe you favour.

[ That's easy enough. A life for a life - Legolas takes his, and Nikolai saved Legolas's- but now the latter doesn't happen, and he will have to do it again.

Funny, a mortal Man saving an immortal Elf. Not once, but twice. Nikolai smiles again, as if at a private joke. ]

[he doesn't like knowing there are memories he should have, but doesn't. it's the same as when he first arrived, and it's the same now. months that simply do not exist in his mind, and apparently a favour that was fulfilled. but for what? they have spoken and met only twice in a week. there were no favours he recalls doing from that time.

he frowns, a minor furrow of his brow.]

I cannot accept a favour in return for something I do not remember doing. You have no debt with me.

[ You have no debt with me, Legolas says, and Nikolai suddenly realises that Legolas doesn't think that killing Nikolai is something that he needs to be thanked for.

Maybe that's why he wants to talk to the Elf more. It's simply this: what the Elf sees to be important and what Nikolai does- it's the strangest thing. And at the same time, Legolas isn't human, and Nikolai doesn't need to rethink his need to be human. ]

You remember arrow, and blood. [ Dryly. ] There is plenty of debt to be repaid.

I do. [but i do not consider it a debt. yet, legolas does not think he has to say this. even if he does, it likely won't change nikolai's mind.] ..It was not a thing done to demand favour in return, only for your sake. [yes, he will say this with a straight face.

but to be honest, despite elven memory, it did happen so long ago.. it wouldn't be difficult to dredge up those memories again, wonder if it really was a favour he did (or at least, one that must be repaid).]

If you must, then do as you will. But you have paid it once already, I would not hold you to it again.

][ Only for your sake, Legolas says in hopes of clearing the debt between them, and Nikolai nearly laughs because it actually worsens the debt. That it was done for him, so it is obviously something he will have to repay. That is how the world works- his world, in any case.

He shakes his head, and there is more seriousness in his tone than it had been before. ]

For my own peace of mind. [ He chuckles, softly. ] Not for yours.

[sometimes he does try to understand where nikolai is coming from, with things like this. he understands caution about giving ones name out, what it means (what it's like) when someone knows your name and you don't know theirs.

he can't understand this. and he should probably stop trying to.

so he sighs, but won't refute the man anymore.] For your peace of mind, then, though I would hope it was peace enough to know that you need not.

[ It's not that Nikolai doesn't understand. He does, and he desperately wants to believe in the kind of thinking that Legolas so obviously holds. But he's constantly walking on the edge of what he wants and what he should be, and 'should be' has always won out.

(Always, but does he need to here? Does he always have to be afraid? Nikolai doesn't want to, but 'want' has little place in his world.) ]

You are very kind. [ Casually, almost wryly. He cocks his head and changes the subject. ]

You are here for long time?

[kind. he rather thinks he's reasonable, not kind, but.. well. if elves were the type to roll their eyes, legolas would be rolling them.

he shakes his head instead.] I have only just arrived, like you, so I cannot answer any questions.

[or so he's assuming. he can't imagine nikolai would be here by coincidence, stumbling into walls while smoking.]

[ Legolas might claim to not know him beyond the one thing that they knew each other for, but the Elf still seems to have an uncanny ability to read him. It's almost enough to make Nikolai start.

Almost.

Instead, he says: ]

You don't look very lost. [ A soft chuckle. ] Being on that spaceship trains you well for this?

Not.. much. [a little. if nothing else, it's helped him realize how simultaneously more and less dangerous it is to be lost on the ship (or in this city) than it is to be lost in his world.

..of course, he's also had about 600 years to study the stars and learn how to navigate them to find his way home. but the dangers of middle-earth are ones that he knows. it isn't like getting lost on a ship with a hundred floors, with holes in its halls, creatures in the dark. or in a city at war with the rest of the world where the very land itself is dead and toxic. he's lost. but it's a different kind of lost.

and he has a feeling nikolai means a different kind of lost, in any case.]

I have been taken to worlds other than my own twice already. There is no point in panicking each time. [visibly, anyway.] ..Do you make a habit of stumbling along streets like a drunkard?

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(no subject)

uwah doriimu-kun

yiiiis i am a -kun!!!!

kun kun nikokun

thanks now we're weaboos. have you see doujin!viggo before?

don't even remind me yes i have, gross tears

HAHAHAHAHAHA

IT WAS VERY TERRIBLE OKAY. ESPECIALLY WITH DOUJIN LEGO SHUDDERS

WHY ARE YOU READING DOUJIN ARALEGO WHY

GOD DO NOT ASK I WAS LOOKING FOR THINGS TO ICON OKAY

IN ORDER TO ESCAPE FOR ORLANDO BLOOM'S DERPFACE?

..YEAH... i wanted to color legofaces but it was never meant to be 8( NEVER AGAIN

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