lifeaftr | November Intro: Red Sun Rises Like an Early Warning

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November Intro: Red Sun Rises Like an Early Warning

INTRO LOG: NOVEMBER

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

The New Arrivals: Hold My Hand
When you wake, it will be to the lapping of waves, frothed with foam...pulling at your hair, your skin, your clothing. The sand is soft and wet beneath you, but it's several inches submerged. And the longer you stay here, the more obvious it will be that the water level of the ocean ringing this strip of island has begun to to rise, and not merely because the tide has started to come in.

And what's more? You can tell that something else about this entire situation is horribly, horribly wrong.

Perhaps you've lost some special power. Perhaps some piece of your memory is freshly and disconcertingly blank. Perhaps you've just discovered that one of your senses is missing, or that you've been rendered unable to speak, or you've been struck by a debilitating fatigue. Not only are you stranded in some unfamiliar place, stuck on a rapidly flooding beach, but you aren't even doing it in full possession of all your faculties.

For those who agreed to put themselves at a disadvantage for a stranger, these are your consequences. If you're unclear as to the handicap your character has been assigned, if any, please check your initial acceptance notice!

All new arrivals will additionally awake with knapsacks, their names stitched to the front. The contents of said knapsacks can also be found in your acceptance notices!

For All: It's a Long Way Down
The water isn't a problem for the newest arrivals, either. It seems that the waters all over Ensō have started to rise, slowly at first, and then with a steadily increasing rate. At first, you might be forgiven for assuming the tide must simply be unusually high, or maybe that the island's begun to sink. But the longer it endures, the more obvious it becomes that neither is the case.

The water has begun to rise. Something is wrong with the island itself, or the being living on it, and now there is nothing preventing the water's inexorable approach as it steadily washes over and over the mainland. In fact, if you listen closely, you might even be able to hear a peculiar sound tearing over the cold rush of the coastal wind; something akin to a desolate wailing.

Either get to high ground - and quickly - or find out what's causing this. But either way, we suggest you hurry...because there are a great deal of newly arrived, very disoriented folk on the beach that could really, really use your help.

As a final note to those who participated in the Test Drive Meme, bear in mind that 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.

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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You learn a lot of things in basic. You learn about military time, ranks, how many push-ups you can handle until you throw up. (In her case it had been 10 at first.) You learn to follow orders and trust your team around you and more. Then from there, if you rise through the ranks, you learn a hell of a lot more things. Throughout it all though, whether basic or her more specialized training later on, a general lesson that you tend to glean from reading between the lines going from instructor to instructor and lesson to lesson is a pretty solid rule of: don’t be stupid. Don’t get yourself killed by doing something crazy.

Unfortunately, Shepard has only gotten this far in her life because she’s That Asshole who charges out of the Mako to shoot a Thresher Maw on foot because it was pissing her off and she kept missing it with her missile launcher.

So she begins to make her way towards it, watching her footing as she goes over bits of rock and dirt.

“Storyteller? Is that you?”

At her words, the lion slows; not abruptly, but gradually, with the air of one who had been expecting to be called out to. They remain perched on an outcropping of stone, their small, sleek head angled down into the vast canopy and glistening white beaches below.

Finally, the lion turns in place to face Shepard. They settle on their haunches, their long, winding tail wrapping around broad paws. The temperate mountain air pulls at their fur, granting them a wispy, almost sallow appearance; if not for the tome clutched in their maw, there would be little to separate their appearance from that of a true beast.

They loosen their jaw, and the book tumbles to the stone unceremoniously.

"Commander."

She waits patiently as the creature slows and when they look out to the island, she looks too. It really is a fantastic view from up here. When she inevitably looks back to them, balancing herself on a bit of stable rock herself, it strikes her how unwell they appear. It's a strange feeling to look upon a god and find yourself worrying about their "health".

"Storyteller. Was that you crying?"

It's an awkward question to ask but better blunt than dancing around the subject. There are more questions to ask, of course, but this one sticks out predominately in her mind.

She looks away. They do not blame her. The disappointment comes only when she looks at them again, and it's visible in the scrape of their claws over gray stone, almost nervous. Almost ashamed. Not befitting the regality of a god.

"I was not crying."

They don't clarify. They look down to the tome, spread open in front of them, and use their tail to place the torn pages back inside. It slams shut with a violent sweep of their paw.

"You should not be here. You should not have been there. It was erroneous."

Shepard gives them a lingering look but does not push the subject, even as she notes the gripping of claws and the uneasy way they hold themself. It is unsettling to see them this way, after so long of seeing their dry humor and put-together nature.

She watches them put the pages back inside their book with vigorous force and the reason for their actions becomes more clear the more they speak.

"If we are completely honest, I shouldn't be anywhere. But that's not important now."

She was dead but is now alive. The Storyteller is not the one who changed this fact or brought her here to this island, nor can she cast blame on the Illusive Man this time around, as dead as he is and worlds away. She suspects she knows exactly what they are talking about however and sighs.

"I can handle myself here and I handled myself down in the caves. However, you are correct that the others should not have been there."

Her tone isn't terribly admonishing.

"The only ones who should have been in that situation should have been those ready for combat and danger."

She continues to look at them, taking in their face and the shame written all over their feline body, and even as she wants to be angry, she feels pity and sympathy move her heart. After all, now, having killed so many people herself and changed the existence of her entire galaxy, who is she to take a higher moral ground? To her knowledge, she has caused more deaths in the past three or so years of her life than the Storyteller in their entirety in the months since they have re-awakened.

"You still, at the very least, endeavored to make sure we had something going in. It's not as if you threw us in completely blind."

The Storyteller is not the Illusive Man in any sense of the word and it only continues to confirm what she felt when they spoke for the first time.

"You do not understand." It is sharp, but their acidity is not aimed towards Shepard. The Storyteller stands, the breeze scoring through their fur like snowy fields of wind-blown wheat. In their agitation, they pace back and forth across the stone.

"I am not a fool. I know how this goes. Errors should not happen in this manner. There are precautions. Methods of consolidation that have failed."

They punctuate their words with a baleful swirl of their eyes over the horizon. Then, the Storyteller seems to calm. They sit once more, pull the book towards them with their tail.

"I'll repeat myself: none of you should have been there. Ever. That is no place for your story to end. I am sorry it did, for so many of you."

They're angry. She doesn't blame them. Supposedly she doesn't understand, but she does. She watches them pace, feeling the breeze on her skin, and thinks of sitting in the Normandy medbay, waiting to speak to Admiral Hackett.

"It shouldn't, but errors do happen. Sometimes in ways completely out of our control. Once mistakes are made, all you can do is endeavor to do better moving forward."

It's the same advice she gives herself whenever she remembers the ghosts of those she has failed in the past: do better. Fight harder. Be better than you are. Do anything you can to make sure the past isn't repeated again. It's too bad there is too much blood on her hands to ever truly wash it all away.

A terrible place for a story to end. She may not know it intimately, may not have experienced the sensation of crystal bursting through skin and fevers razing the body, but having performed the solemn duty of putting down those who did, she agrees. It was a horrible way to go. One that she hopes that no one here has to experience again.

"Is there anything that I can do to make sure this doesn't happen again? If you need help, I can give it. You don't have to be alone, Storyteller."

They look away again, but not so forcefully. In fact, their head moves just a fraction away from Shepard, as though perhaps staring beyond her to something indistinct; something that can nevertheless only be glimpsed in her direction.

"I suppose that is a burden you know well. Yes. I'm afraid that this matter isn't as simple as brokering peace between races with generations of malice. Which I do not believe was simple itself, mind."

Their lithe, muscled shoulders slump, accompanied by a rumbling sigh.

"A paragon of diplomacy, as ever, Commander. Loneliness wasn't what mechanized this error. The fault was in my bookkeeping. I made incorrect judgments based on hubris. If you wish to make sure this doesn't happen again, my best advice is -- to remember that I am fallible. And remind me. If need be."

It's an interesting look, one that catches her attention. She's half-tempted to turn and look herself but she suspects she'd see nothing at all. She keeps herself focused on the task at hand.

"Simple is a pretty big understatement."

She almost got ate by a Thresher Maw to make one (one!!!) of those peace treaties. Then again, she did get to see said Maw attack and kill that Reaper, which was pretty badass and a sight worth seeing.

She shakes her head a bit.

"I wasn't saying this happened because you were lonely. I meant that even with all of your capabilities, it's clear you need back up."

She shifts from one foot to the other, calculating, thinking. Then she speaks again.

"That being said, I'd rather you not be lonely as well."

She gives an awkward sort of cough, then continues.

"That's a lot looser protocol than I'm used to. Not saying I don't like the idea of being able to fully voice my opinions of your mistakes, mind you."

Shepard grins. "I'll keep all that in mind."

If large cats are capable of giving wry looks, then perhaps the one the Storyteller gives her can be described as such. It's a change in their posture, in any case.

"Rest assured, this is no military vessel. I should hope none of your commanding officers fancied themselves mountain lions." They still thoughtfully, as though they've made a mistake. Then they shake their head. "No, no. No cat-people. I think of a different story, at the sky's rim."

Their attention returns to her.

"Though I may sometimes convey differently, I am not a being deaf to the counsel of mortals. It is my purpose to hear your stories, after all. This, on principle, generally requires a talent for listening.

"But at this moment, it is my turn to say: I am truly sorry."

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November Intro: Red Sun Rises Like an Early Warning

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cw some light body horror mentions

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