lifeaftr | TiK Tok

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TiK Tok

Who: Lup (

ohnehalfte), and possibly you!
What: Drunken party of drunkenness and shenanigans
When: Nov 17th, mid-day until everyone passes tf out
Where: Islet #2 aka Trash Island, somewhere out in front of cottage 1 and along the beach
Warnings: Drunk people, swearing, ill-advised people hitting each other with sticks, questionable food, drunken cuddles and crying, etc, etc tbc when there's more

Welcome to Islet 2! There are many reasons for you to be here right now. Maybe you live here. Maybe you're visiting someone who lives here. Maybe you've been invited to this sick party by one of the above idiots. Maybe you were just passing by and got dragged into the festivities. Who cares, really? You're here now!

Out in front of Cottage 1 there's the beautiful banner that you see above hanging on the outside, lovingly crafted by one of the twins. The twins have also lovingly crafted some vodka using magic and potatoes. Potato magic. And hey! There's also stuff that the twins cooked! Like potato tornadoes, fried shark genitals and Fantasy Kentucky Fried Pterax! And other food! And there's a fire! And activities! And drinking!

Mainly drinking. In fact, there is a large cooking pot that, at the moment, is full of the most moonshine-iest vodka you have ever had. There are empty halves of coconut shells to serve as cups, as well as some clay cups that may or may not have come from an interesting source. So help yourself! Who knows how long it'll last, considering the amount of guests. Heck! It might even be repurposed later, after all the vodka is gone! So drink up.

Anyway, feel free to join in on the festivities! There will be several threads for activities where people can mingle, or you can start your own. Have a party, chill out, and/or imbibe ill-advised substances to try and forget that you died. Wheeeee!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"We'll be here all night if we go hunting for sticks," Severs decides. "Just... try to smack me with the flat of the blade, not the business end. Not like I've never been stabbed before, I guess." Skyrim is a hard land, and nobody lives there without accumulating a few scars. Why should this place be any different, right? You live, you risk a sword or axe or two poking you every so often.

But that said... quietly, she makes up her mind: they cut her, she cuts back. Mama didn't raise no fool.

Severs shifts into a combat stance, knees flexed and tail swaying. "I came here for a brawl, so let's get a brawl going before we all sober up. Come at me, dryskin! Let's have some fun!"

you have my oath

The bow of their head is solemn and polite as ever, but they do mean it with the utmost sincerity. They did not hurt the child in that long and painful soccer match; they will not hurt this woman now.

They stand at attention, the occasional breeze stirring the salt-stiff fabric of their cloak, poised and ready.

then let us begin

Oath! Taking this seriously, from the sound (er, look) of it. Most of the brawling Sev's done hasn't involved the decorum and propriety of solemn bows or oaths, but then again... most of her brawls DID involve copies quantities of boasting and mead.

"Gladly, land-strider. Try not to blink."

Both her stance and her attitude are much more lax than her opponent's; standing at attention may suit the Whiterun guards or the Imperial Legion, but someone whose swordplay was nurtured by back-alley criminals and cutthroats rarely bothers to stand up straight. She shakes her plumage and lets a playful smile work across her snout, then charges right in. Severs swings the blunt side of her sword right at the Drifter's side - a bit of a telegraphed swing at that, but she's more interested in testing the waters and coaxing out a measure of their skill than getting a decisive blow in right off the bat.

The Drifter is not nearly so cunning; their motions are direct and to the point, swift and abrupt, immediate arcs of action meant to achieve a singular goal. In this case, the goal has softened from disembowelment to defeat, and they hold that at the forefront of their mind. The swing elicits a sharp swish of movement back, the edges of them blurring violet at the rapidity of it.

They streak for her directly without hesitation or preamble with the flat of their blade aiming to cross across her center, a move as obvious as it is unerring. While a speedy opponent, the Drifter is not a particularly inventive one. They've not had cause to be.

By the Hist, this is a quick one! Maybe she's the one who shouldn't blink. Were it not for the continued silence of her opponent, Severs might have thought this one had just unleashed a Whirlwind Sprint shout. She brings her blade down to parry the incoming swing, muscle memory taking over when the mind simply doesn't have enough time to plan. The force of impact is enough to stagger her back a pace.

"Xuth, you're light on your feet!" She exclaims delightedly, not even noticing that particular cussword's failure to translate properly into the universal tongue. Severs pushes back against the blade locked against hers, trying to drag it downward and open the way for a horns-against-helmet headbutt. The headgear oughta protect them from any real damage, right? Can't be more than a bit of a headache at worst, and most of the people who've been getting deep in their cups around here are bound to be sporting headaches tomorrow, too!

They cannot be entirely certain what a "Xuth" is, but the roar of combat is a quick-paced and blink-fast course of action, and one that does not allow for clarity of thought or a pause to decode the meaning behind someone's words. They anticipate the act of locking blades but do not expect what comes after - the abrupt slam of a horned head against the gray of their helm.

The Drifter stumbles back, blinking hard against the explosion of white-hot stars against their vision. Their sprite chirps something that translates to damage sustained, but they did not very well need its input to be aware of that. They reel, skidding, marking a retreat with an upraised blade until the world stops spinning.

She can feel the impact vibrating down the roots of her horns. Keratin and bone, she's sure, aren't harder than steel, but they at least are much less sensitive than a fleshy forehead. May as well push the few steps' worth of ground she's gained, no? If she pauses for even a breath, a foe this speedy will dance circles around her!

Severs-the-Threads lunges after them, not bothering to clash with that raised blade again. This time, she swings low, aiming to clonk the blunt side of her blade against the side of one leg. This, too, is a more playful move than a vicious one; if either of them were playing for keeps, it'd make more sense to try and sweep their legs out from under them with a whack of the tail or something, not give a calf a love tap, but playing too rough means the fun ends sooner, right?

She's a pragmatic opponent, they can say that much. She knows when to press the advantage and when to steer clear. She is nothing like the great beasts in the farthest regions of each edge of the map, those that would telegraph their movements and draw from a pool of similar attacks. Even the Hanged Man, with his spinning blades and devilishly accurate blows, could be studied and defeated.

This one makes herself deliberately unpredictable. She aims low instead of embarking on another flurrying exchange of blades. They manage to get their blade low in the process in time to parry, skidding across the sand, but their ears are still ringing beneath their helm. She is giving them no time to strike back out, and their motions are not geared for brute force strength. They have only their speed - even a blow as simple as a headbutt can throw them off balance, with how low their constitution is.

Perhaps they, too, can be inventive? Instead of planting their feet, they elect to whirl away once more, scrape up a handful of sand, and attempt to fling it at her eyes.

Pocket sand!!

The hiss Severs lets out as she stumbles back is distinctly reptilian, both nictitating membrane and eyelid slamming upward to clamp her eyes shut. She can't even be mad about it, to be honest - all's fair in survival and sport - but damn, does she wish she'd thought of it first! This one adapts as quickly as they move, shifting effortlessly to the level of dishonorable cunning that they're up against and literally throwing it back in her face. She knew this was gonna be a fun scuffle, but it's gonna be juicier than she'd expected, clearly!

For now, though, she's dangerously open for a precarious moment, her blade dropping as she paws grit from her eyes.

She's open.

She was not expecting it, or perhaps she is performing a complicated feint - but in any case, they would be a fool not to seize the opportunity as it creeps upon them. They press their advantage while they can, the flat of their blade swinging with the intent to strike evenly across one scaly leg.

The blade slaps her square in the calf. Were this a serious battle, she might be down a limb entirely. Since it's just roughhousing, she's not likely to come out of it with much worse than maybe a bruise blooming under her scales.

Plus, hey, the way she yelps and hops back on one leg is probably pretty funny to watch.

"What's that make us, evenly tied?" She asks, finally blinking away the last of the sand. No time to wait for an answer, and certainly no time to look away and try to read whatever their response may be. Instead, she gets right back into the thick of it as quick as she can.

Literally.

"Wuld nah kest!" The words of the Shout come easily, and with the resounding crack of a sonic boom, she launches herself forward in a Whirlwind Sprint, trying to full-body tackle the Drifter at a speed that rivals their own distinctive dash. She's only got one of those to use each day, so of course, drunken horsing around is exactly the kind of emergency to use it on, right?

That is certainly not something they expected from a lizard woman's arsenal.

There's a loud snapping echo, and a series of events transpire that the Drifter cannot quite track or even comprehend, at present. It takes them entirely off guard; she moves faster than she has any right to and slams into their middle in a burst of incredible force that lays them flat on their back with a pained wheeze deep in the center of their chest.

Further damage sustained.

If this were life-and-death combat, perhaps they would have reasonable incentive to continue. But at this rate, they risk more permanent injury for the sake of a scrap - and truth be told, it is no great crime to be bested by an opponent such as she.

The Drifter lets their sword drop into the sand, and they raise both hands, palms out, trying not to wince in the process.

They yield.

That kind of reckless headlong rush has her flopping snout-first to the sand, too. By the time she manages to bounce back up onto her toes, the Drifter is already releasing their sword and presenting their open hands.

"Whew, land-strider."

She lets her sword drop to the sand, too. When one side yields, the scuffle is over, full stop. That's part of Nord honor - something she knows little about and has even less of, but something that's occasionally pretty useful to follow. Instead, she holds both of her clawed hands out towards her opponent's, silently offering to help them back up onto their feet.

"A bout well-fought! You've got the kind of cunning that separates dead heroes from surviving ones. I'd call you shield-sibling any day."

The scuffle is, indeed, over - they would not be as underhanded as to circumvent their own sense of honor for the sake of getting some parting final shot in. They gradually must stand under their own power with a slight wobble, but with a practiced ease that nonetheless indicates they've picked themself up from similar situations before.

you are an adaptive opponent
of great skill and cunning

They would doubtless require the jackal god's assistance, if they were to have any hope of truly besting her in combat.

"Flatterer," she teases, laughing. "I'm nothing special. I'm just used to watching my back."

If they were willing to play with underhanded tricks, too, then they must understand that. There's the combat style of real heroes - of Companions, Dawnguard warriors, those trained warriors fitted in full, custom armor. There's the style inherent to nobles who get tutored in swordplay purely because they're bored nobles. There's the simultaneously slipshod and regimented, regulated methodology of Stormcloaks and Imperials, crews of farmer's sons and fishmonger's daughters thrust onto the field of honourable warfare. All of them diverse and distinct, but all of them built on the idea that combat is something with a set time, place, and purpose. All of them naively believing violence is something that should have rules.

The way this one fights, however, is the way bandits in the wilderness fight. The way the Thieves Guild fights. The way Severs fights.

"You're cut from the same cloth, ain't you? You didn't have any fancy, proper teacher show you the blade, I'd bet." She asks, sharp teeth showing in a bright grin. Maybe that looks threatening. Dryskins always seem to find Argonian smiles threatening. "No, I'd bet septims to sweetrolls that you did what I did. Scavenged a weapon off a dead body because it was the first thing in arm's reach that might keep you alive. You picked a sword up because you had to, and you haven't had the luxury of putting it down since."

They don't necessarily glean every word and every specific to what she rattles off, but they can parse the context nonetheless.

It is not correct in its entirety, but the general notion...

Perhaps she can recognize a kindred spirit, of sorts. Eventually, they nod in solemn acknowledgment. She is not wrong.

drifters do not always drift because they wish it
they carry another's story
or seek to prolong their own

One hand creeps up over to their mantle to tug at it in a small, short, unconscious gesture, adjusting the cloth wrap over their head.

Drifters. They mean that in a general sense, like a bandit is a thief, or as a defining title, as in how the Thieves' Guild calls themselves thieves? Some people look on an occupation as a temporary means of surviving, some understand an undertaking as a way of life.

"Makes it sound awful poetic when you put it like that," she observes. Real way with words, for someone who writes(?) in such short sentence fragments.

"Not everyone I've met wanders just to stay alive, though." Severs scratches at her plumes, nictitating membranes rising to glaze her eyes over thoughtfully. "Someone gets arrested for crossing a border illegally. This land they've walked into tries to take their head. Even so, they don't go home. They explore each corner of that place, from south to north to east to west. Khajiit traders are spat upon and denied entrance into every city, called liars and drug peddlers and thieves. Even so, they keep up their routes through this place that despises them, peddling to the few willing to buy from them. Nonsensical, isn't it? Foolish, even. Makes you wonder what they're thinking."

Her words draw their attention to a strange degree. Perhaps they ought not to focus as they do, but they do. It is fortunate she talks enough for the both of them, as if to make up for their silence. She speaks of traders who are derided, who are dismissed and mistreated simply for being what they are.

perhaps that they will meet someone who will understand

...the Drifter, for their part...

They stopped actively searching a long time ago, to the point where encountering that sort of break in their reality still catches them off guard.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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