exsiliumlogs | Intro log

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Intro log - [OPEN]

Date & Time: 11/8, Evening
Location: INITIATIVE HOLD
Characters: Frodo Baggins & you!
Summary: Frodo sits down, has what Bilbo would call a Good Think, and finds it doesn't help any at all this time
Warnings: None

Cloak tugged about him, Frodo finally sat upon a pair of steps. In his hands lay the strange parchment, the one the woman had called a tablet.

It was certainly a lot to take in, and Frodo was certain that he hadn't actually gotten it all in fact. United Earth, the Initiative, weapons that might think or speak. It was hard to believe any of it. It was harder to believe this wasn't a dream. It seemed he had only just settled down with the others in the Golden Wood. Aragorn had gone to sleep earlier, with that skill and ease it seemed only Rangers and Elves had, and the rest of them sorely needed. It had taken a good deal longer, but he must have dozed off sometime after the others. This seemed, Frodo thought uncomfortably, much too real for any sort of dream. How did one walk right into their company, and carry him off in the first place? How had he not awoken at all during it?

Frodo smoothed out the tablet. The surface felt even and sleek, like glass, and was too thick to be parchment, and too thin and flexible for a book. The surface rippled under his fingers. Frodo removed his hand from it quickly.

Gandalf. Gandalf would know what to do if he-

Frodo's mind turned hastily to Gollum, for the grief was too fresh and the hurt too deep. Anything else. It was unlikely that Gollum would come into the heart of Lothlorien. And if the woman was telling the truth, Frodo was now very far from Middle-Earth. Much further than any hobbit or Man or Elf could imagine. He needn't worry about him for the moment, yet Frodo found himself wondering what he was up to all the same. A thin, white shape, ghostly and fast. Prowling around the borders, hoping to catch them on the way out? Was he dipping his hands into the once clean streams? It was hard not to think of him as such a loathsome creature; Frodo had spent a good many nights listening to Bilbo's stories, and what his description didn't manage, the hobbit's imagination had been more than up to the task. He seemed foul, repulsive, monstrous... pitiful. But determined. After all, he had followed them from within Moria itself, and before that, from Mordor, coming at last to the Golden Wood; orcs and the Shadow and Flame would not deter him from what he hunted for. If Frodo managed to find his way back, there was no doubt that something must be done about the creature. He wished he knew what. Above all, he wished Gandalf were here.

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The last thing he expected was for the Man to all but roar with laughter, and Frodo could only look at him with wide eyes. For lack of a better word, the Man guffawed, actually leaning back with the force of his laugh. It left Frodo feeling both stunned, a little lost and then puzzled, and he had to wonder if he was laughing at him or not, or worse, he thought, laughing at him as if he was a child that had said something particularly amusing. Big Folk seemed to do that from time to time, sometimes treated hobbits as if they were children, which most hobbits of course were anything but! The frown on Frodo's face grew. His cheeks heated. He did not see what was so funny.

Frodo cut in quickly. "Hobbits, if you must." If the Man must call him something, he preferred it that way, over "Little Folk" (though this was true) or worse, halfling. Hobbits were not half of anything.

"I did understand you quite well the first time," the hobbit went on, his voice just the tiniest bit cool, for he was still stung from being laughed at, even if it seemed good-natured. "What I was saying is that I am in as much the same situation as the next person, and am no more or less worse off, all things considered."

This was not quite true. Frodo thought that his shoulders were more burdened than most, but the Ring was his business alone now, and it was best to keep it quiet. And he would not wish it on anyone else back home.

It was delayed, but Frodo did remember his manners. The Man had seemed concerned in his own fashion, if he took his time out to ask him at all.

"But yes, I suppose it is a bad day. I was wondering where to go from here." He had had worse, of course, and he would have taken this than Weathertop. "Thank you for asking."

Edited 2012-11-11 11:36 (UTC)

"Hobbit?"

That was a new term. He wondered if these hobbits were at all like the Dwarves he'd heard lived in a world cloaked in woodlands. He'd never been there personally, but he'd read a few things about little men who lived in cottages. Axel didn't really want to ask, though; he feared he had already offended this hobbit fellow unintentionally and didn't want to add further insult to accidental injury. He supposed perhaps he had already done so, as the continued explanation was made with a grain of distance. Well, he wasn't going to bother explaining that he'd been laughing at the unexpectedly indignant response far more than the hobbit himself--easier to just move forward rather than backpedal to make repairs.

"Ahh," Axel said then, waving one hand, "pardon the unnecessary explanation, then. I wasn't trying to be"--he stopped himself from saying 'belittling', even if that would have been quite the pun--"condescending. But I suppose you're right: we're all kind of here in the same boat, regardless of the size of our shoulders or what preexisting conditions rest upon them."

He paused a moment, then moved to one side of the hobbit and hesitated, as if silently asking permission, before taking a seat about an arm's length away. ... Well, his own arm's length, that was.

"Go?" He shook his head. "They didn't give you a key?" Well that just seemed rude.

Leaning back on his hands he cast the hobbit a sidelong glance and ventured a mild grin at the gratitude.

"You reminded me a bit of a pal I have back home," he admitted by way of explanation. "He tends to look very serious when he's stumped or been thinking too hard. Supposed that if you're actually anything like him, bein' asked about what's on your mind might help get those thoughts in some semblance of order."

Roxas was an odd duck, but Axel liked him well enough. His attention to detail and insatiable need for answers was a bit endearing, and there was something in him that actually kind of enjoyed playing the mentor role; it kept things interesting and made the missions go by more quickly. He wondered for a moment how Roxas was faring back home without him...

Well, no sense wondering about things he couldn't change.

Meeting the hobbit's eye, he lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. "Got a name?" he asked casually. "I'm Axel." He almost added his usual 'got it memorized' to the end of the introduction, but didn't want to add to the idea that he was making fun. He had a feeling that hobbits--he had used the term in plural, so Axel had to presume he wasn't the only one--were likely treated as if they were children by more closed-minded individuals. Just because someone was short didn't make them less experienced or knowledgeable, any more than being tall made Axel any smarter than anybody else.

Frodo nodded. It seemed the Man had not yet heard of hobbits, and if Frodo could teach him the proper way of things before he fell into that awful "halfing" habit that some got to, things would be that much better for all. It seemed that he was thinking more carefully before he spoke, and could not immediately find the words to finish. Frodo understood what he was getting at all the same. "No offense taken."

No serious offense, anyway, and Frodo was willing to move on from it, as long as the Man did not call him "half-pint" again. Goodness, it made him sound like ale to be served!

Reaching into a pocket, Frodo withdrew the key. He weighed it in his hand for a moment. "They did, but I meant where to go from here. They cannot possibly expect us to settle down and forget our business elsewhere or those we care about, merely because they have given us a key and place to live."

It hadn't sounded so simple; they seemed desperate, at war. But there was war gathering back home too, one that could blot out all of Middle-Earth if the Quest failed. The key went back into a pocket. In the meantime, Frodo moved over to make sure that the Man had room to sit, just in case. His legs were nearly as gangly as Aragorn's, or a deer, and he just may need the extra space. The man was as much a living scarecrow as he ever saw one! When the Man spoke once more, Frodo looked at him curiously for a moment. So that was part of it. He reminded the Man of a friend back home, and that had been enough.

"At your service," Frodo said, wondering at the name. Why anyone would name the man after a wagon part was beyond him, but he felt momentarily sorry for Axel and had to wonder as well at his parents' idea of humor. "My name is Frodo... Underhill, of the Shire. And your friend must look so serious because what he is thinking of must be a very serious problem. Sometimes it does help, but sometimes things are best ordered in one's head too."

Edited 2012-11-13 06:40 (UTC)

To be fair, the term 'halfling' wasn't really a familiar one either, but since the hobbit seemed so averse to the mostly good-natured short epithets he supposed he would refrain for the time being.

He shook his head. "I guess I'm a little more inclined to go with the flow," he admitted. "Since it's fairly obvious we can't go home right now, it seemed a little too exhausting to really fret about it." He frowned a bit. "I do wonder about a couple of people back home," he admitted, "but I guess I'd rather hit the ground running and use my time here to my advantage."

He tilted his head a bit then. "The Shire, huh?" Axel 'hmm'd softly. "Don't think I've ever been there." It certainly didn't sound like any of the worlds he'd traveled to, and he was fairly certain he hadn't come across any places by that name in the reports about Dwarf Woodlands. He chuckled. "Roxas just thinks every problem is a bit more serious than it needs to be," he said with a grain of fondness in his voice. "He's still pretty new to our line of work, so everything is a big deal to him."

Boy, and wasn't that an understatement.

He sat up and sort of folded forward, draping his arms over his knees and letting his hands dangle between them.

"If you'd rather sort things yourself then I'll get out of your hair," he said benignly; "I just thought you looked like an guy with some interesting stories to tell. And, well, I like interesting stories." He grinned. "Got a few myself."

Granted, some of the most interesting ones weren't ones he was usually keen on sharing, but it didn't mean they weren't there. If Frodo Underhill of the Shire wasn't up for chatting, Axel could certainly respect that, but he would have been lying if he said he wasn't still rather curious.

"I suppose so, but problems hardly solve themselves without some leg work," Frodo felt it was his duty to point out. Just as the dangers outside the Shire would not go away because the Shire itself preferred to go on about their lives as if it did not exist, so Frodo had come to believe that in a good many things, 'going with the flow' was not always prudent. "We could very well wait for a long time indeed if we leave it up to chance."

Frodo curled his knees, resting his hands on them. There was the faintest hint of fond humor in his voice, though he studied the surroundings. "I doubt you have; news of someone of your likeness would have traveled far and fast." For as Big Folk went, Axle was very...distinct. "As for stories, I have a few, but I would not mind hearing yours."

The hobbit, usually quite happy to find someone willing to listen to the stories he'd picked up over the years, made no real effort to expand on his own stories. His story, now, was one that must be kept in as must secret as it could be, and a good deal of it already too personal and sad.

"I imagine there is no small amount of pressure to perform well, if he is the latest," Frodo said after a moment. What was it they did, exactly? "And Roxas is this one that you wonder about back home?"

Axel was certainly an odd man; in one breath, the Man seemed in no hurry at all to get back to where he had come from, but on the other, worried (if it could be called it; the hobbit found the Man surprisingly hard to read), about those back home.

"I didn't say I wasn't willing to do a little legwork," Axel said, lifting one foot and sort of rotating his ankle briefly before setting it back down, "I guess I'm more the type to save the fretting for later. Right now, there's a lot of unusual stuff in this world, and if I'm gonna be this late getting home I figure I'd better go back with some good recon to go with my excuse; got it memorized?"

He chortled then at Frodo's supposition.

"Think so?" he asked, and he couldn't help a grin. "Ah, that's good to know; I like to think I'm pretty memorable, after all."

He wouldn't go into the part where 95% of the time the Organization stayed out of sight and made a point not to interact with the natives while conducting recon. Honestly this whole situation was a little new: normally Axel would have done his damndest to make sure he wasn't seen, at least until he had a better idea of what made the world tick, but as he'd been met by natives right from the get-go and it seemed that was the way of things, he'd had to recalibrate his strategy a bit. If he was going to be stuck in this place for an indeterminate period of time, without even the benefit of a partner, it would do well to at least determine a few good allies.

Bypassing the bit about storytime for a moment, Axel nodded absently.

"I suppose that's one way of looking at it," he admitted on the subject of Roxas. "He does want to do a good job, but I think there's a little more to it than that." No, he knew there was a little more to it than that, but trying to explain that Roxas was quite literally less than a year old and lacked any sort of real practical life experience probably would have made the conversation awkward and confusing. "But yeah, he's the one," Axel admitted, leaning back on his hands again. "He's a good kid; 'bout the only one there I really like at all. I work with a bunch of backstabbing jerks."

Pot, meet kettle, and my isn't that a lovely shade of black you're both wearing.

"But I digress," he said then with a shake of his head. "As for stories, I suppose I could be persuaded to share one." He puffed a dry laugh and gave Frodo a sidelong look. "Do you have a preferred genre? I'm sure I've got something for just about all of them."

Boy wasn't that the truth. Nothing like traveling across time and space to help you collect a few good campfire tales.

Frodo nodded. He did certainly look quite memorable! It was good that he was not willing to sit by idly at any rate. Legwork was an apt way to describe it in this case. He could certainly do no small amount of legwork all over the place, with gangly legs such as those.

"Erm yes, I have it memorized," What a peculiar thing to even ask! "I suppose it is a good chance to see what may lay behind our worlds."

This Roxas sounded he was someone special to the Man, for him to speak so, and certainly a very serious youth, though it also said something curious about how Axel got along with the rest of his fellows. Were they really all so bad? "I see. If you do not mind me asking, what is it you do?" Was he a ruffian?

Frodo clasped his hands on his knees. "I suppose whatever it is you think would be the most interesting. Something fantastic and amazing, exciting and frightening perhaps."

"You'd be surprised to find how many worlds there actually are," Axel admitted with candor; "I know I was.

"Ah..."

Hm. How to answer that question... What exactly would Axel have put down on a resumé, anyway? 'Assassin' sounded pretty cool, but he didn't figure it would win him too many allies who wouldn't stab him in the back. Ultimately, he didn't even really know what the Organization's objective was, aside from Complete Kingdom Hearts Become Human Again... but that wasn't really something that was easily shoehorned into an industry category either. Had he known what Frodo was thinking, he might have chuckled: 'ruffian' wasn't really too far off, though Axel rarely brought harm without significant reason.

Well, there was one thing that he could say for sure.

"I guess you might call me a Strategic Surveillance Specialist," he said with an important wag of one finger. "Basically, it's my job to scope out new places and report back my findings." Among other things. "So I've seen a lot of different worlds. This one isn't so unlike a few others I've seen, in the end..." He quirked his mouth. "So maybe I'm not as unsettled as most newcomers, 'cuz this isn't really all that new to me."

He did chortle at Frodo's request. Fantastic, amazing, exciting and frightening?

"Easy, there, that's a bit much all at once, don't you think?" This hobbit was definitely of an entertaining sort. Axel never thought himself much of a storyteller, really, considering he was more in the business of keeping secrets, but he supposed he could indulge his new acquaintance a bit. Rubbing his chin, Axel looked thoughtful for a moment. "Well, I could tell you about the Heartless," he said, supposing those weren't exactly classified. And they were rather fantastic, in a frightening sort of way. "Have you ever heard of them? My... organization... is conducting a lot of research on them, but I've never heard of your world, so it sounds like you lucked out and they haven't found you yet."

Lucky bastards, those Shire folk. ~~All they have to deal with are evil overlords and giant eyeballs, gosh.~~

If he hadn't already been seated, Frodo would have found the very sudden need to just then. He was already surprised to find out that there was more than the one he had lived on, yet it seemed, according to Axel, that there must be so many more beyond these two. Frodo found the news both dizzying in how vast everything must be (the world that lay beyond the Shire had seemed so very large as it was), hard to believe, but at the same time, somewhat exhilarating.

"Surprise, yes, and one must feel very small! I would never have guessed something could lay beyond our lands and sky," Frodo said, voice hushed. Axel's answer about what he made his business also earned him then a quirked eyebrow. He was not entirely sure what Surveillance meant in this case, only that strategy for the most part, was used in such an important tone for business dealings down in Michel Delving or in some of the older books, the sorts with armies crashing on each other like waves. Surveillance, naturally (the more he thought it over) must have to do with surveying of a sort. In this case, worlds.

He supposed it did need a Specialist and not just anyone. "You make it your business to be highly knowledgeably in surveying lands for those interested in them?"

From the tone in his voice, Frodo was wondering what such a harmless business had anything to do with the rough way the Man made it sound. Or he may have simply had the misfortune to find that all those around him were particularly unpleasant.

Frodo did not look at all sheepish, though his request was something of a tall order and coming from a hobbit, a most unusual one. If he had seen enough worlds to find this unsettling, then he must have a healthy number of stories at hand. Frodo had leaned forward as Axel started. "No, I have never heard of them. What sort of creature are they?"

Axel's eyebrows lifted when Frodo suddenly looked a little unsteady. Though the hobbit was seated, it appeared for a moment that he was trying not to fall off the ground, and he supposed that his initial reaction to the idea that there was possibly an infinite number of worlds outside his own had been something similar.

"Small's a good word for it," he said, though 'insignificant' had crossed his mind far more often. He kept that part to himself, however, and then nodded. "Bingo. We kinda keep tabs on interesting goings-on in worlds that are relevant to the Organization's current interests."

His expression shifted a bit as Frodo acknowledged that he hadn't heard of the Heartless. Well, just as well, Axel supposed. As important as completing Kingdom Hearts was, he really wouldn't have wished the Heartless on a world.

"They're usually fairly small," he said, "and all black, with big yellow eyes. They look a little like big insects that can walk on two legs." That was what he'd first thought, anyway. Reaching a hand out, he leveled it at about the height of his knee. "About this big," he clarified, and then made a gesture with both hands, drawing them back away from his forehead over his crown. "With antennas. We call 'em Shadows, because they can actually move in and out of patches of darkness. They usually travel in swarms and even though they're not very strong by themselves, twenty or thirty of 'em at once can be a little overwhelming to deal with."

He paused, trying to figure out how to explain what they were to someone who didn't have his worldly knowledge. The concept of the Heartless and Nobodies had been a bit difficult to swallow at first.

"Actually, in a way, 'Heartless' is a bit of a misnomer," he explained, one hand swimming absently to the front of his coat to rub at the fabric there, as if he had a bruise that ached suddenly. "When a world gets consumed by darkness, the people there lose their hearts," he explained. "The hearts are held within these vessels we call the 'Heartless'. Bit of an oxymoron, really." He was the one without a heart, but that was neither here nor there. "So my Organization keeps track of these Heartless, watching the worlds they travel to and keeping an eye on their activity."

He would let Frodo decide for himself whether he thought that was heroic or villainous; Axel had always preferred to maintain ambiguity on the exact morality of the Organization's work. He was no hero, that was for sure, but he wasn't certain he would have called himself a villain. He wasn't about to spill any beans on what the Organization was doing with the information about the Heartless, of course, but it certainly wouldn't hurt for a few people to know that facet of their purpose. Besides, he didn't really like the idea of the Heartless showing up here and no one being prepared for it; without Roxas and his Keyblade handy to take them out, it wouldn't be of any use at all for the denizens of Exsilium to lose their hearts.

Edited 2012-11-28 01:58 (UTC)

The creatures hadn't sounded very intimidating or dangerous when he had begun to describe them; no bigger than a dog and certainly not as big as a wolf or troll or bear! But he supposed they needn't be too big, especially if they could (and Frodo found this hard to imagine - he wished not to in fact, for his imagination could now picture these popping up every shadow he might find) move from shadow to shadow. And swarming, like a particularly nasty bee swarm!

It seemed that things could only get worse. How could they take a heart? He could only imagine it as a nasty wolf biting down, and then - Frodo's stomach gave a little flip at just the thought. He hurriedly moved on. So that was how he could have seen so many worlds.The hobbit could not hide the fact that he was impressed with the Man's job if he had wanted to, nor did he. To keep an eye on more than one world, to visit them, and to keep an eye on things, like Strider and those Rangers of his did. It seemed a very admirable job.

"I think I am glad that we have never had the chance to meet these beasts. It is very noble of you too keep track of them." Frodo's eyes went to the hand that rubbed at the Man's chest, as if remembering an old pain. "Have you been attacked by these dreadful things?

Axel snorted, though in amusement more than anything else. Noble? Him? Yeah, right. But he supposed if Frodo wanted to think he was noble he wasn't about to correct him. He paused when Frodo asked if he'd been attacked then, and he snapped his hand down and away from his coat.

"Er... I guess you could say that." He cleared his throat awkwardly. "I mean, it kinda comes with the territory."

It paved the way to the territory, honestly, but po-tay-to po-tah-to. He waved a hand then.

"It's really nothing I haven't been able to handle," he assured him, still kind of amused that Frodo apparently thought the Organization had anything but selfish intentions. Ultimately, he supposed if there were beneficial byproducts to their efforts, that was all well and good, but he certainly wasn't about to subscribe to the idea that anything Xemnas did was for anyone but himself. For that matter, there was little Axel did that was for anyone but himself, but that was neither here nor there. "The job comes with a few handy perks that make the whole undertaking a bit easier."

He figured maybe a little showing off was allowed. Twisting his wrist, he conjured a small tongue of flame and held his hand out toward Frodo, though not near enough to really pose a danger or even be mistaken for a threat.

"They have magic in this Shire of yours?"

Axel did not strike the hobbit as the type to be very bashful or humble, but it seemed that there were plenty of surprises to this Man. Perhaps the nature of his work was only work to him, but to everyone else... it was more worthwhile than anyone could fully know. And he had been injured while carrying this work out, and still, did not boast or brag as others might.

"It still must have been very close," Frodo replied. Axel might wish to pass it off as not worth much time or effort in the telling, but it must be frightening to have come so close to having one's very heart taken.

The Man proved he had yet more surprises, and Frodo was nowhere ready to see a small flicker of flame spring up from the air above his palm. Frodo's eyes widened. He had only seen one produce anything close to it, though Gandalf's fireworks had been bigger and brighter. Others might move through the Wild as if they had magic, like Aragorn, but it still was due to skill when it came down to it, rather than any spells.

"Only traveling Wizards; hobbits can't." He looked at Axel with wonder. "Are you a Wizard?"

"I've had a close call or two in my day," he said, resisting the urge to grin at the irony, "but, well..." He spread his arms then. "As you can see, I'm still here."

In a manner of speaking, anyway.

He rolled the little flame around his fingers then and chortled. "A wizard? Mm... not exactly. I guess that's not an inaccurate term, all things considered, but I don't really identify as a mage. My control over fire is a bit more advanced than the average spellweaver--it's sort of a part of me, you might say."

Axel had never really understood why losing his heart had given him this sort of power, but he wasn't really complaining. He had always had an affinity for fire, but learning magic had never really been on his to-do list as a child, and maybe his lack of extensive training was to blame for his mediocrity at everything but fire, but he supposed he didn't mind so much. His ability to wield fire was usually more than enough to serve his purposes (though being a bit more adept at Cure might have been handy).

"Fire's kind of my specialty," he concluded, then closed his fist to extinguish the flame, giving Frodo a curious look. "So if hobbits can't learn magic, what sorts of things do they do?"

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Intro log - [OPEN]

;D Thank you

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oh god i laughed. seriously. i love it when people make axle jokes. XD

No one can resist!

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orz holidays wry. i will be more available now, sorry for the wait!

np

and then i forgot i hadn't tagged this yet. I AM FAIL.

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