exsiliumlogs | (no subject)

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There are many bastards in the world.

[ No; Alayne is only trying to survive. ]

It's good to meet someone from home, Ygritte, even if we're from different sides of the Wall.

We don't care to point ours out. What your father did or didn't do shouldn't have any reflection on who you are. That's how we live. This bastard was from South o' the Wall though. Called himself from the North. [A scoff. As if you people know winter.]

If y'say so.

The north has many bastards who take black vows; there's little aught for them elsewise.

[ Still...there's a stirring in her heart. Are there truly so many Snows in the Night's Watch? ]

Maybe where you're from. We could have used this bastard. Though he thought himself Northern, cuz his father was some lord o' the North. [Another scoff. They all thought they were Northerners, but they knew nothing.]

[ Her heart swells in her throat. ]

And who was this bastard?

Y'seem awfully interested in some Northern bastard, girl. [She peers at her.]

Jon Snow. We took'im as a turncloak.

[ sweetly ] You seemed quite eager to speak of him.

But I confess I have heard of this bastard - only we would call him Lord Snow, in the southron way, as he is Lord-Commander of the Watch now.

Cuz I knew'im. He was one o' us. For a time.

[If there was anything more surprising to come out of this girl's mouth, she couldn't imagine it.]

Lord Snow? Y'mean t'tell me they made'im some Lord?

The black brothers choose their own lord to lead them. They must not have thought him a turncloak.

[ And there is a strange sort of pride in that - that Jon, the last of her brothers, could have risen so high. That he has his honor. A bastard's sort of honor, she thinks. ]

He killed the Halfhand. [Though he did warn them, but she doesn't say so. This is making her stiffen a bit, jaw tight. It makes her all the more restless, being here.]

[ Jon would never! she wants to say, feeling outrage on behalf of the estranged half-brother she was never close to. But doesn't Alayne have blood on her own hands? Who's to say Jon doesn't too?

We do what we must, she decides. This strange savage girl can hardly speak for Jon. ]

I'm sure you know better than I what he's done.

[She scoffs at that. If only you knew, girl.]

Aye, I know better than most what Jon Snow's done. [Heavy intonations there.]