lifeaftr | August Intro: You Think...You Wink...You Do A Double Blink...

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August Intro: You Think...You Wink...You Do A Double Blink...

INTRO LOG: AUGUST

Who: Everyone!
What: New souls arrive to the archipelago of LifeAftr.
When: August 3rd
Where: Ensō
Warnings: Mark as needed!

Part I: Get Wrekt
You rouse to a splash of sea salt drying on your skin. A haze of glass-white sand glitters in your vision, dappled by lush palms and thick, curling foliage that disappears into a jungle of deep jade. From behind, crackling wood and sawing rope groan from a mangled life raft ran ashore. A petering wash of tide over pebbled sand fills your ears as you struggle to gain your bearings in a vast portrait of tropical color…

No...no, no, that’s not precisely how this story starts.

Why don't we start over?

You rouse to a splash of sea salt, spraying across yourself and the wooden floor beneath you as it breaks across the edge of the platform. The light as it dances across the sea is blinding, dappling white spots across your vision as you slowly come back to consciousness and realize that - this is not where you last remember being.

The middle of the ocean is likely not a place most recall being at all. As you struggle to fully comprehend the new scenario in which you have found yourself, three things become quickly apparent. The raft you find yourself upon barely constitutes as something that should float, never mind a boat. In the distance, perhaps a few hours away at most, a large island beckons to you, a wide strip of beach surrounded by cliffs making it very clear where the most fortuitous of directions shall be.

Lastly, of course, you’re not alone. Hopefully your new companion(s) are just as keen to get ashore before nightfall as you, or voyaging together will not be the most positive experience. At your side you will find a knapsack, one to every member of your raft party, and upon inspecting its contents, you will discover any rewards you may have accrued - as well as a few other items to give you a fighting chance.

A note to those who participated in the Test Drive Meme: those threads, if all parties involved would like, can be game canon in the form of dream-like memories involving a place very much like this one, though the layout is considerably different.

Part II: Choose Your Own Adventure

By fortune (or misfortune, as it were), you eventually find your feet meeting sand, blessed shore to stagger upon as you shake off your newly found sea-legs. There are those that may find this place familiar, as though it appeared in a dream, though the expanse of shore certainly seems larger. The beach stretches off into the distance on both sides, curving around sharp ridges and cliffs, mist obscuring the view the farther along it goes.

So here you are. You’ve found land. Company. Supplies. The sun is now beginning to trek rather low upon the horizon…spending the night outside in such an unfamiliar land is unappealing at best and outright dangerous at the worst.

There is one silver lining in the midst of this mess. Directly ahead, the beach curves up a gentle slope until it meets forest, some manner of building visible through the trees. Further exploration of this area will reveal a dilapidated building of sorts; the architecture is indiscernible to even the most skilled eye. Despite looking as if it has seen better days, there are areas that offer some form of shelter...and who knows what else. Just because it appears uninhabited doesn’t mean you won’t wind up pleasantly, or unpleasantly, surprised.

So what shall you do from here, traveller? There is land to be explored, strangers to meet, friends to reunite with. Supplies to inspect and plenty of questions in need of being said aloud. Choose your path, make haste, and above all else: survive. And whatever you will, take heart.

Your story is about to begin anew.

Feeling a tad adrift? Make sure to check the Locations Page, which has details regarding the starting areas and a handy map for those who feel better with a bird's eye view!

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

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[Not...literally. But he doesn't put forth the effort necessary to clarify. Not just yet. He manages to work the lid off with stiff, numb fingers and position one of the beads over the mess of wood.]

[Time to see if that hunch of his is correct.]

[Strike to light.]

[He gives the thing a hard tap, and it more or less bursts into flame at once, catching and licking at the damp wood as though it were dry kindling. He flinches at the abruptness of the conflagration, but only barely; the tips of his fingers sting as they begin to thaw.]

...other worlds. [He glances back up to Weiss, shoulders hunching slightly as he lets the flames finally begin to dry him off some. Just for a moment. He'll have to feed it some actual dry fuel, but for now - he's earned a rest.]

You ever been before?

[ She tenses slightly. Before? Has this man been to more than one other world? Weiss looks more than a little worried about that question, looking uncertainly at him as she answers. ]

Our energy sources don't work off-planet. Anyone who tries to leave the atmosphere doesn't make it home, or anywhere else for that matter.

[ Remnant has no space travel, and getting whisked away to alternate universes? No. There's a lot Weiss can accept, but given that magic is the best kept secret in her world, she has no reason to believe it's even possible. And yet the further set the sun gets, the better she can see the moon and it's not the moon she grew up under. ]

[Just the one. He doesn't have the fondest memories of the place, but at least it prepared him fro the worst.]

[(It would be cruel on some level to say that dying was the easiest part. The part that will remain forever seared into him. The part he can't help but be, on some level, ~~grateful~~ for. Because it was easiest to understand. Because it was familiar.)]
[(Of course you were happiest when you didn't have to exist.)]
[He flexes his fingertips into fists and out again, warming the aching joints.]

It's more complicated than just...space travel.

As if the world needed to be more complicated.

[ Everything was already a mess. This was a mess within a mess. She'd thought she'd finally gotten out of never seeing her friends again, that she'd finally managed to find freedom. She's just at someone else's mercy now- whoever thought bringing her to another world with nothing but knapsacks and what was on her person. ] I had a dream about this island, before we got here. Is that normal before you arrive in one of these other worlds?

[As a general rule of thumb, if it's possible for something to be complicated, it will inevitably become so. He learned that long before he ended up stranded in a Castle in the Mist, and he doubts things are about to change now.]

[Tim's brow furrows faintly, his head lowering in uncertain acknowledgment.]

Didn't happen to me last time. Place feels familiar, but...

[But he's not what you'd call reliable in terms of memory. He could've been here a thousand times and forgotten every single one. That's just the kind of issues he has.]

I dunno. I remember meeeting other people here, is the thing.

[Weird. Right?]

Are we dead?

[ Weiss could beat around the bush all day if it was something she wanted to be subtle about. But for her, that didn't seem like all that much of an impossibility. Huntresses didn't survive long in her world- especially heroes, and.. ]

One of the people I met in that dream died in my world. The last thing I remember is being in a cargo ship without communication to other kingdoms. We had to cross the ocean, and I don't remember it, but ships go missing all the time. I was the only huntress on that ship, if my head was injured and it was attacked, I wouldn't remember. Are you sure this is another world?

[ She didn't want that to be what this was, but it was something she had to consider, as horrifyingly unfair as it was. But he seems to know, so hearing it from someone who actually knows what's happening, even a little, will be a big time comfort. Not that she wasn't happy to see Pyrrha again, but her determination to proclaim she's definitely not dead was a lot firmer when it felt like a dream. Eight months of being trapped with someone who wanted you to feel worthless tended to make the less positive possibilities slightly more acceptable, as much as she didn't want them to be. ]

[An instinct swells in his gut, something that should be long buried, long cut out. The urge to smile. To laugh in the face of something that's so obviously not, in any way, funny. Are we dead?]

[He certainly had hoped so, when he'd opened his eyes. When the last memory he carried was how it meant something, that they tried. Even if it meant failure. Wouldn't it always, where he was concerned? Or did they walk away assuming it was their own fault, the same way they thought in reference to everything else?]

[People long dead can appear. A prince trapped in a twisted little shape of a flower can live and breathe again, and a child who slept in the soil sleeps no longer.]

[Maybe a cameraman can step, blinking, into a world unlike that of shadowed tree trunks, where cold, unknowable tones would drill into his head and tear away whatever shreds of his consciousness remained.]

[Weiss would be forgiven for thinking that Tim had simply forgotten the conversation at hand, trailing into silence as he stares dully at their crackling fire with the tongues of red at its heart. But eventually, he answers.]

Time is kinda...weird, in places like this.

People who're gone can get taken from points in...from moments where they weren't.

[ The silence had nearly been taken as a yes. No one happy to say 'No, we're definitely not dead,' holds off that long to answer unless they think the answer is cruel, that admitting it would just be admitting defeat.

When he finally does speak up, Weiss breathes a sigh of relief then pipes her voice up. The quiet and solemn tone she'd taken up disappeared and she sounded almost irritated, despite the clear relief. ]

Don't take that long to answer when the answer is something like that! I almost died inside thinking I'd actually died after finally finding my way, you dolt!

[ Clearly this was the issue here. ]

[That earns a look that's perhaps the closest Tim's gotten to actual surprise since ending up here: eyebrows lifted, fixing her with a slightly puzzled crease dimpling his forehead.]

[Forgot that someone else could have problems too, didn't you?]

[Now's hardly the time to indulge that self-pitying downward spiral he so excels at. Tim breathes out a slow, weary sigh and pinches at the bridge of his nose.]

...sorry. Kinda got caught up thinking about something else.

[Mostly death and dying.]

Obviously.

[ She's definitely catching onto this guy being the type who gets caught up in his own head a lot. She'll have to keep on top of that- which depending on the urgency of the issue from here on out, will either be just occupying her time with something else or clapping in front of his face to get him back to reality. They'll work on it. ]

Careful or I'm going to end up calling you "Space-case" instead of Tim.

Edited 2017-08-04 18:56 (UTC)

[Can't exactly blame her, can he? He's off his fucking case, isn't he? Just kinda broken in every which way, brain leaking important stuff out of both ears every time he closes his eyes.]

[He tips his shoulders up in a vague shrug. At this point, he's simply resigned to it.]

Wouldn't be the first time.

I'll have to get more creative with the name then.

[ She's trying to be playful, even if this whole situation is frankly irritating. It comes off a little snider than she intended. ]

What was it like where you were before? That other-other world.

It was a, uh, Castle in the Mist.

[Snide is no object. Honestly, he'd be a bit more disquieted if someone wasn't sniping at him in some manner or another. That's just kind of his general default state of being.]

Got volunteered to fight someone else's war. [Supposedly.] Didn't end up doing very much fighting.

[ That would've been a more familiar scenario. Castles and wars sounded a lot more like home than this place did. ]

You don't look like much of a fighter.

[ Says the girl in the tulle skirt. ]

Neither did any of the kids there.

[Sorry, was that hint of bitterness creeping into his tone? Might've been. He's still not over that, actually. Fuck you, Ozuma.]

Wasn't exactly a selection process. Or a willing one.

A lot of kids learn to fight young where I'm from. We have entire academies to help us prepare for it, but I take it that's not what you mean.

[ she had very abruptly learned the difference between schooling and real war only months ago. ]

Particularly given the lack of consent.

[ No one who started learning combat in her world was there because they were forced. It was just a necessity. The world needed heroes or those who couldn't be that would die. What he is describing sounds very different, but Weiss only has her own experiences to go by. She had been upset when Ruby skipped years because she was supposed to be her leader, not because of the moral problem of a 15 year old preparing to enter a job many didn't make it to gray hairs in. She's trying to understand though. ]

You look like you made it out though. That's not something everyone can say regarding a war, even if you ended up.. well, here.

Well, that's the thing. I didn't.

[He let them drive the knife into his soul. An attempt to - well, if he's honest, he's not really sure. Cut them out? Sever whatever remnants they may have left behind? It hadn't worked; he can still remember them, from the chilly smile to the rosied cheeks to the way their words had lashed out across the space between them, red and glistening.]

[It's hard to forget someone like Chara.]

[(But shouldn't he be having trouble remembering? He'd seen them, he remembers, walking among the trees - looking almost content.)]

[(Content, because it was almost over. For them.)]

But I knew what I was going into that time. Not anyone's fault but mine.

[If he could have tried and keep himself in his own goddamn head, maybe this wouldn't have happened in the first place.]

I doubt that makes it much less traumatic. I had to fight for the right to become a huntress back home. We'd fought plenty of times before, taken down criminals and fought terrorists, but when it came down to losing...

[ Even if she hadn't physical scars, even if she hadn't been one of those who lost their lives or limbs, she had still lost so much. Friends, her faith in herself-- everything she had believed she was doing to protect this world, her team, had all fallen apart and everything that had helped her discover who she was to begin with had been taken away.

Weiss closed her eyes, but straightened her back before looking directly at Tim from across the fire. ]

It doesn't matter if it's your own fault, everyone has the right to their own pain. That's terrible if you didn't make it through.

[That's alarmingly poignant for someone who was just threatening to call him "Space-Case." Perhaps he shouldn't be surprised. Even the most vindictive of souls generally have a soft spot - even if it's hard to uncover.]

[He's learned that, if nothing else, that's even more likely than ever.]

Not really. I was just kind of getting in the way.

[A shrug; he's long since mastered the ability to be utterly frank about his own death, or the potential for it. It's not particularly pressing.]

Maybe here I can be a little more useful.

I won't argue with that since I don't know you, but my point still stands.

[ A lot of people dismiss her own feelings because she's rich/spoiled/a Schnee/whatever, even if she has a lot of real issues. Things she can't necessarily talk about. So there's a bit of sympathy there whenever someone feels like they don't have the right to feel a certain way about their own problems. That doesn't mean she's going to tell them they're wrong about their role in something though. ]

Well, what sorts of things are you capable of? Obviously we're not all experts at everything. [ If her fire is anything to speak of. ] I'm sure there are going to be more people than just me who are going to need something here.

I can make really great compost, apparently. [He sounds wry as he says it, though it is, for what it's worth, a true statement.]

Real good at staying alive. Usually.

[He's definitely survived a stabbing that should've been fatal. But then, he had a little help. From multiple sources.]

Edited 2017-08-06 02:08 (UTC)

I might be optimistic in hoping we aren't here long enough for that to become a useful talent.

[ Please don't tell her they're going to get to the point of farming. She doesn't want to be a farmer. She wants to buy her groceries at the market and never have to deal with compost in any context besides Jaune trying to claim he's the Compost King because of that ludicrous board game. ]

[In his experience, it's never wise to become dependent on something that promises to prove a source. Ozuma had promised, apparently, to protect and grant everyone sustenance, and on how many levels had he failed in that simple directive by the time Tim arrived?]

You don't wanna get dependent on anyone for stuff like that. [It's less a warning and more...advice. Though it's entirely up to how Weiss chooses to interpret it.] It's better to have some kind of back-up plan. Even if it's making compost.

The last meal I ate before I arrived here was packed for me by my butler.

[ Basically, she doesn't particularly have a choice right now. She has zero food talents besides having really good taste and table manners. ]

I know how to do some basic things but I'm not afraid to admit that I don't particularly have a choice in regards to dependence on someone, at least until I can find someone to teach me. [ A beat. ] I'm a huntress in regards to monsters, so I'm probably going to be able to adapt to hunting best, though, so I was hoping I'd find someone to teach me how to hunt animals instead of Grimm.

[That earns a small blink of something bordering on amazement - as close as Tim can get, given his general state of emotional asystole that very little, up to and including his own death, seems to be capable of rousing him from.]

[At least she's capable. And she can admit her own faults.]

I'm guessing Grimm are...bad guys where you come from, yeah?

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