January Intro: I Know the Winter's Getting Colder

[lifeaftr_mods]

INTRO LOG: JANUARY

Who: Everyone!
What: New souls arrive to the archipelago of LifeAftr
When: January 5th and onward
Where: Chol and surrounding waters
Warnings: Mark as needed!

The Overview: New Lands
New arrivals will not be waking in the typical hub of activity; instead, they will find themselves coming to on the small island of Chol. While the island's fringes are little more than an unforgiving spread of craggy, canyon-like rock and coastal cliffs, the island dips down to form a fertile divot of edenic woodland in its center. The people living there will even be helpful and polite to you, should you inquire after them.

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

Icebreaker: This is the Winter of Our Youth
Unless you're someone with a fondness for the cold, you'll undoubtedly be waking with more than a slight chill in your bones. The appearance of the island of Chol has signaled a coming event of great import in LifeAftr, and unfortunately, the signs of that event's approach have already been set in motion. The temperature has begun to drop as the sun's rays begin to die, faster and faster, leading to an impressive cold snap in the ocean waters - particularly those surrounding Chol.

It is for that reason that you won't be waking on Chol, per se. Instead, you'll be waking on a thick crust of ice that's mantled itself over the ocean waters, freezing solid enough to bear your weight...for the most part. The ice won't hold forever; it isn't meant to. If you happen to be particularly vivacious in your waking, or especially active in general, thick cracks will start to spiderweb out from underneath those impacts with low, warning chunks and wrenches of fracturing ice. Better hurry to land soon, unless you care to take a little dip into those freezing cold ocean waters.

Mainland: When We Pick Over the Past
Should you make it to the land of Chol, braving the iced-over waters surrounding its craggy shores, you'll encounter something at least as startling - the people who have elected to set up a rudimentary encampment upon its lands. While a bit on the scalier side, the Jormun are nonetheless allied to you land-dwellers, and will welcome you to the island. Most will be preoccupied with preparations for an approaching siege, but many will comment idly that the cold is a sign of the coming battle. Some may point you to their leader, known to most as Munin, but others will venture hospitality based on the actions of those land-dwellers that came before you, who were successful in allying themselves to this sea-dwelling people.

Those who might have braved the cold a little too fiercely will quickly be offered some rather rough blankets - perhaps more on par with burlap sacks in terms of texture - as well as a hot brew that the Jormun call brrkshavak. Heated to a boil just prior to being served, the drink will be more than adequate in warming your weary bones, though it bodes mentioning that it is both scalding hot and made with a fleshy kind of undersea herb that is akin to crushed chili pepper in taste.

It'll warm you up, all right.

---

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.

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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!

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LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[walkietalkie]

❰ clementine's midway through the process of slowly and carefully rising to her feet when that word - her name - has her stopping short. her eyes narrow just slightly as she takes in his face. scrutinizes it, searching for any spark of recognition within her... but nope, nothing.

this isn't the first time this has happened, she realizes. when she came back to haven after she left the first time, there were people who knew her - people she'd never met, not once in her life. at least as far as she could remember.

so instead of a reflexive 'who are you?', she says: ❱ If you know me, I don't remember you. ❰ all the while straightening up on her feet so she can survey the ice between her and the shore. ❱

[postictal]

[By now, he doesn't find it strange. People come, and people go. He's heard of this sort of thing happened, and it's happened with Asriel already, but at least this - this is promising to be much less cataclysmic. So that's nice.]

...right.

[She must've faded out, then. And now she's back. The bottom line? It doesn't matter which version of Clem this is, because she's currently stuck on the ice very far from everything else, and the priority is getting her off of that before they can play catch-up.]

[So. Moving on.]

Can you move, or is it too thin where you are?

[walkietalkie]

❰ 'right'. that's it, just acceptance and moving on. she already kinda gets why she (or whatever alternate version of herself was here before) bothered to know this guy.

her survey of the ice ends with a conclusive: ❱ I think I can do it. I just... have to be careful. Just don't come out here, okay? ❰ because if he starts to come out, his weight might break the ice for both of them. as it stands, she's starting to slowly creep in his direction, careful footstep after careful footstep. ❱

[postictal]

[Does he have anything useful on hand for this? Probably not, huh? Because he didn't fucking plan for having to rope kids from thin ice. Sure, she's capable, but he doesn't wanna have to leave her on the lurch.]

Yeah. No, I...I don't wanna break the ice even faster.

[Fuck. So where's that leave him?]

How's it looking?

[walkietalkie]

Cold. ❰ she says, before a smarter and more helpful answer can come to mind. because it does, it looks incredibly cold, and she can only imagine how cold it'd feel if she fell through the ice and the current sucked her under.

but no - she needs to stop thinking about that. clem swallows hard, shifts her knapsack on her shoulder, then changes her answer: ❱ It looks okay so far. ❰ spoken slowly, to match her gradual light-stepped shuffle across the ice. she's maybe a third of the way to shore now, and so far there's been no sign of any kind of cracking. ❱

[postictal]

[No...no, wait, he does have something.]

[He sets down his pack with a bump and rummages about inside until he can extricate a long coil of slightly worn but nonetheless sturdy rope. After testing its thickness with a sharp jerk between fists, he holds it up.]

I'm gonna toss this to you. If you fall, that way I can tow you in. Okay?

[walkietalkie]

❰ clem eyes the rope, then nods decisively. ❱ Okay, I'm ready. ❰ her hands are lifting a little, prepared to catch it. ❱

[postictal]

[He leans back, spinning the rope several slow, preparatory circles before picking up speed and letting it fly. It falls a few feet short of where Clem is, and he bites his lip.]

Can you make that?

[walkietalkie]

Definitely. ❰ she resists the urge to speed up to get there, measuring out her careful steps until she's in range to crouch down and take hold of the rope, wrapping it around one hand a few times to make sure she's got a good grip. ❱ You're not gonna pull unless I fall in, right? ❰ because if he accidentally unbalances her, it might be enough to break through the ice. ❱

[postictal]

[He shakes his head before realizing that the distance between them might make it difficult to really track the motion, especially considering that her interest is deservedly fixated on the ice.]

Emergency lifeline only.

[walkietalkie]

Good. ❰ but it's quieter, almost thoughtless as she picks her way across the ice. it's pretty slick underfoot, and maybe six months ago that might have been an issue, but she's a veteran at navigating slick winter landscapes by now and she seems to be keeping her footing well enough.

after a few steps, she asks: ❱ How long was I here? Before. ❰ might as well start to figure things out now. y'know, distract herself from how slowly she has to walk in order to safely get off this ice. ❱

[postictal]

Couple months.

[Measured tone, polite and even, as though she isn't walking on literal thin ice here. She's a competent kid, he's pretty sure, and he knows Wade liked her. She lived with him. Him and Newt and Sans.]

[Now their household of four is down to two, unless it's back up to three, now. He's putting good money on the fact that it will.]

You lived with a couple guys I know.

[walkietalkie]

Who? ❰ the question comes quick and a little wary. like i said,
this isn't the first time she's come 'back' to realize she either has a doppelganger or is missing a chunk of her memory, and the 'other clem' back in haven wasn't necessarily a wealth of good life choices.

she's almost there now, just a half-dozen more steps and she'll reach the shore. ❱

[postictal]

Doctor, uh...well, he goes by "Newt," along with a guy named Wade. They're big on nicknames. I guess they both knew each other from way back when.

[Possibly he should have waited for her to get to shore before dropping that little bombshell, but he wasn't expecting either of those names to mean much of anything to her. They didn't mean anything immediately to the other Clem, right?]

[Oh boy.]

basically just ignore any inopportune linebreaks in the middle of my tags, dw does that all the time

[walkietalkie]

❰ newt. she knows newt, vaguely. not like travis, though. not like jesse. not like-

wade. he said wade, wade is here, or at least was- ❱

Are they still here?? ❰ the question comes so quickly, she almost interrupts. but then amends it to: ❱ Wade. Is Wade still here? ❰ newt's cool and all, but very very unimportant in light of the fact that wade wilson is or was on this island. ❱

lol it happens

[postictal]

...yeah.

[Okay, that sure wasn't the reaction he was expecting.]

Wears lots of red? Goes by "Deadpool," I guess? [Just ascertaining that it's the right Wade they're both talking about here. Not that he'd be surprised, if he turned out to be the "Wade" in question; the guy attracts children to him like no one else Tim has ever met.]

Last I checked, he's still around.

[walkietalkie]

Yeah, that's him. ❰ her chest is swelling with something like an aching hope, and it's audible just barely in her voice. ❱ Can you show me where he is? It's important. We're a team.

[postictal]

I mean, I...I know where he lives? I don't know where he is right this second, but -

[Important, yes, but also important is ensuring that Clem doesn't fall through the ice in her haste, because that would be the worst kind of irony, for one. For another, he's not sure Wade would forgive him for allowing another one of his kids to die.]

Let's...focus on getting you off the ice first, yeah?

[walkietalkie]

I am — I'm focused, ❰ she reassures him, eyes dropping to the ice again to lend evidence to her point. ❱ Where does he live? With Newt, you said? Anyone else? ❰ as fast as her questions are, her footsteps are decidedly slow and careful. she's almost there... ❱

[postictal]

There was another guy, yeah. A skeleton. He's gone now.

[That would probably be more alarming to someone who doesn't seem pretty well used to the bizarre nature of some of the shit they deal with.]

There's these islets, got these rundown houses. Most people live there.

[walkietalkie]

A skeleton? ❰ on the one hand, what the hell? on the other hand, if anyone would live with a skeleton, wade's... unfortunately that exact kind of guy.

meanwhile, she's finally reaching solid ground, taking an extra couple of steps for good measure before she lets her pack slide off her back and sinks down to sit on a decent-sized rock. ❱ Whew.

[postictal]

[Thank god. He starts reeling in the line of rope immediately, drawing close - and then stopping a couple feet away, just in case she doesn't appreciate strange men encroaching on her space, which is honestly more than reasonable. More than fair. He's well aware of how he can come across.]

You okay?

[walkietalkie]

Yeah. ❰ she doesn't seem too worried about him approaching. he seems like an okay person, and he does know wade, so... she's just going to assume he's not a threat, for now. ❱

So... who are you?

[postictal]

...sorry. I'm, uh - I'm Tim.

[They've met, but briefly. Briefly enough for it not to matter, he knows, as far as she's concerned. Fresh slate. Clean start-over. Rewind.]

You could say I've been here a while, I guess.