OPEN (plus one closed prompt)

[blindfoster]

Who: Quentin & Anyone!
What: Arrival, Creepers, Lorbies, Wandering
When: Various November dates
Where: Around and about
Warnings: Update as we go!



[ Arrival - Backdated to 11/9 ]

Quentin is so done with the ocean. So. Done.

He's done enough that he's made it ashore and is currently protesting the entirety of everything by doing his best impression of a body that had washed up on the sand, flat on his back, staring up at the sky like he can assign blame here. He can't. He definitely can't. Skies usually don't have a lot to do with the nonsense that happens in his life.

More often than not it's the more screwed up parts of Faerie and politics. He does remember something, maybe, some half-remembered dream, that he must have had when he--

But that's a thought, and Quentin sits up with a jerk. However he wound up in the state of castaway, he hadn't been alone. He'd been in the Duchy of Ships, with the others. With the Luidaeg and Tybalt and Dean and-- "Toby!?" He looks around more seriously now. Bright sun. Not the Summerlands. That's about where he realizes he needs to focus. Anyone watching will see a young man with sharply pointed ears and elfin features mutter a quick nonsense snippet of lyrics, and all at once his features shift subtly, looking entirely human. Totally subtle, of course. Nothing to see here.

He rises to his feet now and tries to brush off the sand, looking around. If he catches sight of anyone, he'll call out, tentative, "Umm... hello?"



[ Creepers - 11/11 ]

The creepers catch his attention, and Quentin realizes that maybe he shouldn't follow something he doesn't really recognize. But maybe he's spent too much time as a squire to one (1) October Daye for the good of his self preservation At least he's smart enough to follow it at a distance.

Exceptionally lucky when the thing goes and explodes, leaving a startled Quentin squawking and scrambling back. "Oak and ash, what was that?!"

This place is crazier than anywhere he's been, and that is saying something.


[ (CLOSED TO AZIRAPHALE) What the actual fuck Lorbies - 11/15 ]

After meeting things that explode, well, Quentin is wary of the local fauna. But the lorbies, well, they seem harmless.

Harmless but loud. He's wincing even as he crouches to scoop a couple up. How to make hem quiet??

He's wearing his human disguise, though he's starting to think there isn't any reason for it. But so many people here are human looking, old habits die hard. And the person he's approaching looks human. ...honestly he looks like some of the stuffier faculty that he's seen hanging around Berkley when they've visited Walther. Hi Aziraphale, here is a teenager approaching you with creepy screaming wormy things. "Do you know what they want? They won't stop screaming."

Help him, mister?


[ Wildcard ]

Feel free to find Quentin basically anywhere. He will roam. And need help settling in. Or catch me at seasided if you'd like to plan something out.

Comments

[counterblows]

"I was going to shoot it before it went off, but I guess that doesn't matter now." Could be worse. It could've taken out some actually vital buildings, or something along those lines. He glances down at the guy, gives him a once-over. Yeah, looks civilian to him. Hard to say, though. Someone not used to being approached to a dude in UNSC-issue power armor.

"These things have been popping up all over. No idea why, but they don't blow up until they get close to someone. Best to pick them off at a distance."

[blindfoster]

"Yeah, it sort of beat you to it. A little." Given the blast radius though, what this guy says makes sense. Quentin nods. And he certainly does look like a civilian, and a young one at that, nineteen and currently dressed like any modern teenager. The clothes are an illusion. The youth isn't.

"That makes sense. Too bad all I've got is a knife. Guess I'll ave to get better at avoiding them." A brief hesitation. "Does anything else around here explode randomly?"

[counterblows]

"This would be a first." But there's a first for everything, isn't there. "My advice? Next time you see one, just run. They don't pop unless they're right up in your face, and they're not as fast as most people."

At least the guy is armed. That's one better than some people who show up here.

[blindfoster]

"Running it is." Quentin is quick to agree. That sounds like the best plan he has, if taking them out from a distance is the way to go. He's never been into archery and his only experience with guns is being shot a couple times -- so he's not really a fan.

Sighing, he looks around once more like he expects another of the creepers to just show up when he's not paying attention. "I miss San Francisco. The most dangerous thing there is trying to get across the bay bridge." Well, the most dangerous thing that humans are aware of anyway. Faerie has all sorts of tricks up its sleeve, hiding just out of sight.

[counterblows]

"You're from Earth?" Too late, he realizes this is maybe a weird way of phrasing it. A lot of people are from Earth, he's realized, and the ones that aren't just happen to be from other dimensions entirely. But it still catches him by surprise - someone from the west coast.

"I mean...you're from San Francisco?"

[blindfoster]

That is an odd way of asking the question and Quentin's eyebrows lift in curiosity before he nods. "Toronto originally, but yeah, for the last few years I've been living in the--" in the Mists nearly comes out, but the name of the Faerie kingdom that includes San Francisco probably isn't helpful. "--the Bay Area. I like it, even if I miss snow."

Boy does he miss snow.

And then because he hasn't forgotten the way the question was first asked. "Where are you from? Are you not from Earth?"

[counterblows]

"No, I am. It's just that not a lot of people where I come from..."

How does he say it in a way that doesn't sound weird, for someone who lives in the Bay Area? Who lived there, until recently? Who has been to Canada but not, Wash presumes, anywhere further than that.

Presumes, because he doesn't know.

How does he say that people are born on colonies in dozens of systems and dozens of galaxies spread out across the observable universe, and some people will live their whole lives never even hearing of Earth, let alone visiting it?

"It's something that makes you stand out, where I come from."

[blindfoster]

"Huh. So... where are most people from? In your world I mean." And then, a curious addition. "Are most people human?"

Now, that could mean something to do with aliens. And given the armor and all, maybe that's what he half means. But he also is fishing to find out if this guy knows anything about Fae. Granted, most humans in his world don't know Faerie exists -- by design -- but you never know.

[counterblows]

"A lot of them. There was this whole intergalactic war and things got complicated, but for the most part, it was humans on one side and a whole mess of other species on the other." Covenant. And Freelancer, well, didn't have much to do with the reason the War actually ended, but Wash doesn't have room in him to harbor any bitterness over that.

"Humanity's spread out. Got colonies all around the universe."

Maybe a weird thing to say to a guy who lives in the Bay Area, he thinks.

[blindfoster]

"Intergalactic war," Quentin echoes. Huh. So. Definitely aliens then. He shakes his head, looking vaguely mystified at all that. "It sounds like a sci-fi movie. Or like one of Chelsea's video games."

At least he's a teenager with a decent grasp of modern media. Most of the rest of the Fae community would be thoroughly confused by the idea.

"So... you're probably from something I'd think of as the future." And that makes his head hurt to even think about.

[counterblows]

"Something like that, yeah." Sci-fi, video games, whatever makes it easiest to digest. That kind of vernacular isn't so uncommon among the Reds and Blues. Wash tilts his head slightly to one side. The visor makes it difficult to get a read on his expression, which is maybe why he wears it so often.

"What's the year where you're from?"

[blindfoster]

"Two thousand fourteen. So... humans have been to the moon and stuff, but that's about it." And Fae keep themselves to moving between realms rather than planets. It's a lot less effort. No rockets or spacesuits involved.

The visor really is something to get used to, but Quentin assumes the guy has his reasons for keeping it on, and considering he's currently wearing a magical mask that makes the whole of him look human, he is not one to talk.

[counterblows]

"...yeah, you're pretty far back." He sighs, looks up, does a once-over of their surroundings. No further creepers appear to be sneaking up at their back, which is the important thing.

"Things here aren't very high-tech. Place is just about the most backwater you can get."

[blindfoster]

Quentin hesitates, considering his next words carefully before he says them. "It's... a little like one of the deeper realms of Faerie."

Humans don't generally know about Faerie -- with good reason -- but well, they're all here. And this place really seems exactly like those locked away places in Faerie.

[counterblows]

Well, it'll be obvious from the angle of Wash's head that he doesn't expect that answer. Fairy? Faerie? Maybe a year ago he would've scoffed at the thought, but he knows better now. He's choked on flowers and fought dragons and so, yeah, drawing the line at faeries would be a pretty arbitrary limit.

"Common where you come from?"

[blindfoster]

"Well. That depends who you ask. Humans don't know that Faerie exists. But it does, and it always has. The deeper realms are locked away, for centuries now, since Oberon shut the doors when he disappeared."

And those deeper realms are full of strange creatures and weird locations.

[counterblows]

"Can't say it sounds familiar." Pretty sure that's not the case where he's from, either, but if there's another race out there, he kind of doesn't want to know. Humanity's discovering of other species has historically prefaced the near-extinction of their own race.

"Oberon's...what? In charge of the place?"

[blindfoster]

"More or less, yeah." The king of all their kings, the first of them all. But Quentin won't go into that. It's weird enough that he's talking about it to someone that he assumes is human, or at least, not Fae.

"Anyway, this place seems a lot like that. Which isn't exactly great.

[counterblows]

"Well, here it's the Storyteller. Ostensibly." Wash sounds a little sour, like he's making a face behind his visor. "They're the only one you could say is in...charge, I guess. You probably got that dream before you arrived, right?"

Everyone gets the dream.

[blindfoster]

"I got a couple dreams before I arrived. But yeah, I got that one. More than a dream then. That figures." He also had a horrifying adventure on Mu.

He can hear the tone in Wash's voice though. "Are you not a fan of the Storyteller?"

[counterblows]

"In general, I don't harbor a lot of faith in deities," he says, in a dry tone that suggests he carries more than a little doubt as to the veracity of that claim. People can call each other gods all they like. There is, on certain planets, no discernible difference between a god and someone with sufficiently advanced technology, so he doesn't really buy apotheosizing anthropomorphized rabbits at face value, exactly.

"Or a lot of faith in claims of godhood."

[blindfoster]

Quentin nods. "I get that. But things that call themselves gods usually have at least some power to back that up." Which at the very least makes them beings to be wary of at the very least.

"But they're not hostile at least?"

[counterblows]

"Not usually," says Wash, who has now heard more than a few stories about their pointed crankiness, at times. "They say they want to help us. I guess sometimes they do. It really depends on how charitable you're feeling, and how charitable they're feeling."

Do they have the power to back the conceit of godhood up? Probably, but a lot of things can claim to be powerful. When you compare something like that to your average space marine, most everything is.

[blindfoster]

"And that sounds just like home too."

Great. This place is Faerie but somehow worse, and he's not sure what to think about that just yet.

"So there's a price and they have moods. Great."

[counterblows]

"As most people...things...do, yes." Wash makes a faint, resigned sound in the back of his throat. "I don't tend to talk to them much."

Not unless it's absolutely necessary, essentially.