test drive 02

[thestewards]

I know dust grows even when there is a breeze
Can't move, can't grow When you've fallen on your knees

► All TDM threads may be considered canon provided both parties agree and are accepted into the game.

► Canon threads may be redeemed for influence and reputation depending on how you solve the issue at hand or how you engage with the prompt. They also count toward AC.

► Feel free to switch up your character's Jewel from thread to thread. Get a feel for how a Birthright Jewel may limit or enhance your character's abilities.

HOT UNDER THE COLLARD GREENS
The relationship between the Blood and the landens has never been easy anywhere, least of all Draega, and even less so now that the Strangers have arrived. Between Blood and landen, opinions on the Strangers vary wildly. Some Blood believe the Strangers were landen in their original worlds and thus cannot possibly have anything to offer, but some landens think this means that the Strangers will be more sympathetic to them—or that landens could gain the power of the Blood one day, too. Then there are the landens who think the Strangers have sold their souls to Queen Fayura to gain the Jewels and the Blood who think the Strangers have embraced what it truly means to be Blood. Whatever that means.

Tensions are high, and they're highest on the main street of the Old Town Bazaar, where two restaurants have an on-going feud. The Last Meal is owned by a Blood family, none of whom wear a Jewel darker than Yellow. Across the street from them stands the mockingly named Blood and Breakfast, owned by a landen family.

To say these two hate each other would be something of an understatement.

On this particular morning, Lord Harle, the Yellow Jeweled owner and chef at The Last Meal, comes storming out of his front door. "You've done it now, Laney Cook! Soured all my milk!"

Simultaneously, Laney Cook, who is the owner and chef at Blood and Breakfast, comes stomping out the front door of her establishment, brandishing a wooden spoon like a sword. "Aye, and you've replaced all my sugar with salt, you ripe old bastard!"

Without missing a beat, both turn to you and the Stranger at your side. Wrong place, wrong time, friend. The two chefs decide the two of you can be trusted to help them prove the other party guilty of sabotage because neither of you has a stake in this. And, well, if the Queen brought you here, you should be an independent party. Both Harle and Cook seem to think the Queen is pretty okay.

Truthfully, they're both equally guilty. Lord Harle and Ms Cook have been trying to ruin each other for years, but who knows what you'll find when you go searching for evidence. And even if you find evidence that decides one way or the other, perhaps you'll simply lie and manufacture a solution that suits you—or the Queen who brought you here.


TERRIBLE TWO(HUNDRED)S
You're not entirely sure how this happened, but you're starting to understand why Blood females constantly grumble about the caste of males they call Warlord Princes. Prince Loren has, somehow, managed to maneuver you to the place you're at now: the head of a classroom full of Blood children who all look like they're somewhere between the ages of eight and ten. It's hard to tell, and you're pretty sure one bossy little boy declared he was 203-years-old, so everyone else has to listen to him, thanks.

Regardless of how Loren managed to get you there, there you stand. Fifteen energetic elementary school children all wearing Jewels shriek and shout, using Craft to amplify already shrill voices. One girl floats near the ceiling, her face screwed up in concentration as she clutches a Rose Jewel. Two little boys are taking turns passing their hands through their desks, which strikes you as distinctly unsafe for eight-year-olds to be doing. (You're not wrong.)

At least there are two of you, and you only need to babysit these children for the morning. "They're here for Craft lessons. Surely, you can manage until Lady Sheera arrives," Loren had said before abandoning you to a battlefield full of powerful, pint-sized children.

There's a lesson plan on the teacher's desk, but maybe you should lead with the snacks.


REVENGE, SERVED STINKY
The air is crisp and cool; it's still winter, but it's not as chilly as it has been, and so you're out for a walk. You've made your way north through Old Town and now find yourself meandering down the roads in front of the landen Guild Halls. Even though they're all made of red brick, each building is entirely unique. The Hunter and Crafter Hall, the largest of all the buildings, has more in common with a hunting lodge than the university building it once was. The Elektriline Hall might be the smallest building, but it's covered in neon lights and impossible to ignore.

Equally impossible to ignore is Master Tinker Mari and her collection of landen young adults. They're clustered around a storm drain. When Mari sees you, she detaches herself from the group of landen students and bounds over to you. "Ahhah! Stranger! You have been brought here against your will and are surely sympathetic to our cause!" she exclaims.

That doesn't make you feel too great since, you know, you're aware that the Hunter Guild tried to kill all the Strangers maybe two or three weeks ago. They may have mellowed out, or they may just be biding their time. Thankfully, none of Mari's students bear the markings of a Hunter.

She pulls you to the group. Already, canisters have been lowered into the sewers. A handful of students have clambered down after the canisters. "The Blood wouldn't help us repair the damage in Old Town," she says, rubbing her hands together. "Our people's homes were unlivable. So we're going to make their workplace unbearable." She points at the canisters. "Stink bombs."

There's another Stranger in the group, and you make eye contact over the top of the storm drain. Are you of the same mind as each other? As Mari? The choice is yours: agree to Mari's plan and fill the buildings of the Ebon Council with untenable stench or try to convince them there's a better way.


AIR TIME
Whether you catch the news on a Far-caster in the city or you're spinning the dial on your own device, you'll hear…

etiquette with evandra and aren
[Evandra's voice is a little bit rough and a little bit husky, the kind of voice that gives bad ideas to young men and headaches to fathers.] Today we're talking about everyone's favorite subject.

[Aren's voice is chipper and bright. He sounds more like an eager boy than the full-grown man he is.] Food?

[A laugh from Evandra.] No, Lord Aren. Sex and flirting. Culturally, the Blood don't consider it rude to flirt quite blatantly with each other, even when one or both of the parties is married. Isn't that right?

[Aren:] That's exactly it, Evandra. Older males allow young witches to flirt because it's understood that the male isn't interested or available. He becomes a safe partner for her to practice on, and his approval lets her know what is and isn't acceptable.

[Evandra:] What does it mean if a married male or witch flirts with you?

[Aren:] Casual flirting means that witch or male thinks you're safe. It's their way of telling you they feel comfortable around you. Of course, it's always acceptable to ask them to step back! [He laughs.] As we all know, just because you can flirt with a Warlord Prince's lady doesn't mean you should!

[Evandra:] Let's take a look at casual flirtation between different Blood castes…

the weather
[A soft-spoken man's voice rumbles out of the Far-caster. He's pleasant to listen to, with a soothing cadence to his voice.] Warmer temperatures will see melting snow over the next week. Be careful around the Heartsblood River, as the heavy snows will result in flooding along the banks. Need flood insurance? The Transport Guild is looking to expand into…

the news
…amusing to hear that Grand Master Niall blames the Blood for the fires in Old Town. It is my understanding that members of the Blood, these so-called Strangers, went out of their way to rescue both Blood and landen during the fires set by the Grand Master's Hunter Guild. [The man speaking has a slow, clipped cadence to his voice. It's very posh and polished.]

[Another voice, presumably an interviewer:] The Council counts the Strangers as Blood, Lord Grejor?

[Grejor:] What else can they be? They wear the Jewels, therefore they are among our number. [He laughs, and the sound is cold.] The Council is pleased to welcome our new brothers and sisters.

Comments

[withbite]

You just saw me sprout fangs and get all weird. I think I can handle whatever you're hiding.

[sunborne]

Bracelets...?

[ he gives it some though and, of course, immediately loves it. because wow! that honestly never occurred to him before. and the more he thinks about it, the more he likes the idea. dialup might like it, given her fondness for artifacts from other worlds.

nightbreak is a harder nut to crack with how she doesn't like physical materials and has no arms buuuut- if he's right, dialup liking it means she'll, at least, have to keep the bracelet around. ]

That's a great idea! You're amazing! [ the strange bap-bap-bap noise comes back and, this time, with full force with how loud it is now. daylight is certainly bubbly and bright enough to be a good distraction for someone who needs it. ]

Guess I gotta figure out where to get them while we're all here. They're pretty big and a lot of jewellery here is for smaller humanoids.

[withbite]

[Guess who wasn't going to answer -- because she hadn't asked a question. Just made a statement and he'd asked one of his own. Damon could be petty. And juvenile. And conveniently forgetful. He took another bite, then went back to look in the box for something to drink.]

Anyone here know where their teacher hides their 'special drink'?

[Every teacher had a special drink. Every. One.]

[theladyofwinterfell]

You might re-evaluate that once you see precisely what I mean. He needed my face unblemished but the rest of me became a canvas. I've never shown anyone.

[withbite]

[Welcome to Damon's life; where everything came back to bite him in the ass. Figuratively and literally.

He rolls his eyes, but follows a few steps away with her, looking back at the two idiots and waggling his fingers at them.]

Why? If they're not going to play nice with each other, maybe having an outside scary threatening source might make them realize they're both idiots and they won't be petty dicks anymore. Plus, it's getting to be lunch time and I'm hungry.

[withbite]

[He could give a glib response to that, but he thought of his mom. Of the bruises she'd hidden behind lace. Of some of his own playmates. Ugh. Being around Stefan and Elena had made him mushy.]

Pretty sure I've seen worse, but I promise not to faint. You can draw on me if I do.

[theladyofwinterfell]

I try to keep any new additions beneath my clothes, hence my concern about being marked with fangs. I'm sure you'll find plenty of places acceptable to us both.

( ... )

When did you want me to come?

[withbite]

[It wasn't as if he couldn't offer her options, after all. Vampire blood cured all sorts of ills. He tapped the device before he answered.]

You're the one walking into the lion's den. How about I be generous and let you pick the time.

[whettedmind]

I suppose it is. Still, if we were in Winterfell, how would you handle this? I know how I would have approached it as Hand, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

[Curious about her as well, though he'd hardly admit as much out loud. He hasn't laid eyes on Sansa since Joffrey's ill-fated wedding, and the woman standing next to him in Old Town's streets is certainly not the girl he remembers. They'd hardly been what he would class as friends during their brief and mutually unwanted marriage - how could they have been, after the horrors his family had inflicted on her? - but there had been moments in which he'd hoped they might find an accord.

And here, now, they're the only two people from their entire world adrift in this strange place. Reason enough to see if they can be allies in more than just circumstance.]

[theladyofwinterfell]

( Being new to Draega means having little to fill her days. Sansa has gone out and met some of the Blood but she still doesn't have many people she considers friends, or potential friends so she finds herself at loose ends quite a lot of the time. )

I've nothing occupying my time at the moment, nor in the foreseeable future. Unless you've another woman with you now, I am quite available.

[theladyofwinterfell]

Hm, well. If this were a dispute presented to me at Winterfell, I would want to see the evidence for my own before talking to the involved parties. I wouldn't want any bias to affect what I saw; words can be twisted but physical things less so.

After I examined the evidence, or lack thereof, I would then speak to each party to obtain their position and deliberate. Usually the answer lies somewhere between two extremes.

( Sansa tries to be fair in her dealings and while she doesn't know if she's as good at it as her lord father had been, she feels a certain pride when she's able to reach a mutually-agreed upon solution to a sticky problem.

She tips her head a bit, wanting Tyrion's thoughts on the matter. He's older and has different experiences in ruling than she; his input will be quite welcome. Besides, it feels nice to be on the same side of things. He's a good ally in a place where she has none. )

[yesterweek]

[ A common enemy, and that enemy being Calvin? No way. There are limits to how far Calvin can be pushed around until he starts to put his foot down... or back away quickly.

But this time he's putting his foot down! He feels deeply uncomfortable with the idea of strangers hating him for no reason other than this asshole in front of him can't be bothered to think of a better plan. ]

No way. If you want to go through with it, then you do it. I'm not going to be part of this.

[ He'd rather waste his entire day trying to find a solution to this seemingly unfixable problem. ]

you think good to have the teacher come in soonish?

[inducings]

[ Hey. Hey! She'd said please.

...well, she wasn't going to say it again.

It was interesting to her that he didn't lie to her. He could have easily said yes, and gone back on his word. He could have easily turned it around, stepped closer as he had before, and made it some sort of a challenge.

He'd actually walked away instead. Piper didn't know him, and she didn't want to read too much into it, but she decided not to press him. She's still tense, and she decides to circulate around the room again.

One of the kids responds to Damon's question: It's in the second drawer. On the left.

...though when he opens the desk drawer, he may be disappointed. It seems Lady Sheera has a secret stash of... tea. ]

[yesterweek]

To-- where? What the fuck?

[ It would seem like some kind of big joke, if not for the fact that Calvin was currently standing in some magical world far away from his own home. Nothing really seems totally impossible at this point. ]

[whettedmind]

As tempting as that is... [And it is just a little tempting - the feuding between Blood and landen may be serious, but this particular manifestation is as petty as it is ridiculous.] We should probably at least take a look at their kitchens first. Who knows what other mischief might have been worked?

[Considering his own culinary expertise stops at knowing decent food when he tastes it, much of said mischief would escape him entirely, unless it was just as obvious as the complaints the two chefs are currently airing. But he's watching them out of the corner of his eye as he speaks to his current 'ally', and the stiffness to Ms Cook's shoulders and the faint beads of sweat standing out on Lord Harle's forehead despite the chill in the air...those are telling.]

[assholic]

[Jessica's culinary experience was limited to 'I can order take-out' and 'mm, peanut butter tastes just fine off a knife'. The pair of them were probably more well-suited to testing the wine cellar, but she didn't know Tyrion's proclivities, nor did she feel like expressing hers.

Well, not yet. After another ten minutes of having to deal with dumbasses, that could change.]

Not my forte, buddy. I don't see any Big Macs or Whoppers or New York Sclices, so I have no damn idea what bullshit they might be pulling. But hey, if you can tell sugar from salt... go for gold. I mean, we could make them both cook in each other's kitchen and eat what's been made.

thanks i'm ALWAYS RIGHT

[unwieldy]

[ Not sure why he has to stand back for whatever's about to happen, but Haein does so, and a moment later it's very apparent why.

His mouth drops open when Diana smashes the chest along with a chunk of the desk it had been sat on. Okay, this... is new. This is definitely being engraved into his mind because what the fuck? He's absolutely never going to mess with this person ever.

It's not just that she smashed open a chest but that she thought that was the appropriate method to opening it that's really stunning him!! Though he guesses that makes sense when someone has super strength??

There's just... a long pause on his end, as well as the children. Everyone's kind of staring at Diana, and then suddenly it's like the children are a pack of hungry wolves as they all descend on the cookies like ravenous beasts.

Haein, meanwhile, is still in some sort of shock as he stares openly at Diana. ]

What the hell was that?

[garmr]

[A stealthy getaway over spoiled cakes? Maybe if he were in a better mood he might have laughed at the suggestion. Even if some did manage to escape, he didn't accept the Queen's offer to chase pastry chefs through the alleyways of Draega.

He would come, if only to provide a cold glare or two to speed things along. Trailing a step behind Tyrion, Guts had no issue with letting someone else with more manners and social graces take charge of this. He'd dealt with enough villagers to know they were spooked easily.]

You really want to talk to them?

[Just slap the two with their fines and move on with it, he thinks.]

[stickypete]

Depends on what you do with it. For instance, I do a lot of breaking and entering.

[He has sneaked into many a corporate building in his time.]

Like a lot.

So I'm just going to act like an idiot that doesn't go snooping around all their personal biz.

[He takes another bite of sticky bun.]

It's good we have a mixed group. Some people can play dumb and take advantage of the underestimation and some of us can wheel and deal and politically maneuver. And we can just pretend we're not sharing information and coordinating it all.

[stickypete]

[Oh boy that sounds bad. Definitely an old-timey place, where women are pretty much property. Peter takes some time before responding, partly because the idea of her being married twice against her will makes him want to throw something.]

[Although it's partly because he's in the middle of eating a meat pie and he got it all over his farcaster.]

There are people that can teach you how to fight. Some of the Queen's people train people every day at the palace and there are some of us that have experience we can lend.

I'd offer but my style isn't always something normal people can match. The best way to describe is that I'm altered into something that's not entirely natural and that means physically I'm capable of things normal humans aren't. But there are other people that might be able to teach you how to fight both physically and/or with magic.

And people willing to fight for you. We have to look out for each other here. Even the queen might not always do it for us.

[thedarkbond]

i think a lot of people will try anyway...so you might as well get some entertainment out of it, right~?

i think at least it's only a thing with the blood and not the landens...
which doesn't really make it any better it just makes it less people -n-

[midship]

--no.

[The word comes, perhaps, a bit too fast and harsh, but surely that's better than sounding faintly afraid. The classroom, after all, was at least as much like a ship as they were likely to get--keeping rowdy energy in a single place where, perhaps, it could be tamped and tempered and made into something productive.

Free in the world would be like men let free at port: really, it was a lucky thing to get any of them back.] Not-- outside.

[But that just means beginning to analyze how best to rearrange the desks. Horatio's fingers shift idly against the edge of the teacher's, lesson plan ignored as his hand sketches absently toward a stowage plan.]

Could you stack them?

[athnvas]

[ it seems to work well enough. at least well enough that the attention turns to mari, the students turning to a very easy place of reverence and excitement. the crowd shifts then, too, asking mari questions, wanting to know how they could help. with the shift in tide, annabeth lets herself feel good about how that went down - about the avoided altercation.

she steps around the group so as not to bring any of their eyes back to her, moving to meet piper just a bit outside of their now growing crowd. mari, for her part, seems to be answering the questions where she can. feeding into the excitement of building.

annabeth speaks quietly in return, her eyes still on the students, making sure none of them are listening. ] Unless you can find a way to get down into the sewer to get the one they already dropped. [ she sighs, running a hand through her hair - messing the curls a bit, but the action is so second nature, annabeth doesn't really care. ] I tried to find a way when I was looking over that one? But it might involve something more involved. I couldn't do it with everyone watching.

[ but hey, she tried. ]

[theladyofwinterfell]

Back home, I did have people to fight for me. My brother raised an army to fight for me - but it isn't something I wish to be dependent upon my entire life nor is it feasible to rely upon that when I am in a place like this. My brother is not here and I cannot imagine anyone would want to raise an army on behalf of an unknown stranger.

In some ways, it comforts me. I need less protection because I am less important now. I am no one in Draega, just a stranger like the others who came through, and there's no reason anyone would want me eliminated. Still, I would rest a bit easier if I knew what to do with a dagger besides cut myself in an attempt to wield it.

c:

[athnvas]

[ he stops, reacts to the name she calls, and she feels something heavy and weighted land in her gut. because before that moment, as much as she had thought it could be him, there was still a chance. still some segment of reality she could hold onto. but then he stops and annabeth knows that this is happening.

would he run? would he make her chase him down? she would, if he did bolt - she knows that as well as she knows her name, or how much effort it is going to take this next breath. but he doesn't run, and instead turns to face her. they meet eyes, and gods, gods he's exactly as she remembers him. exactly. and yet she wonders how different she must look to him - older, tired, covered in scars she couldn't even hope to heal. she's been through tartarus, stopped gaia, brought together the camps...

and luke has been dead. for years.

she's seen her fair share of ghosts, she knows what she should expect, but the boy standing in front of her is solid and it catches her breath in her throat, showing only in a slight tightening of her jaw. annabeth doesn't move, keeping his eyes, still trying to parse out what she plans on doing now that she does have his attention.

i thought i'd never see you again

they're back in new york, he is dying on the floor of the empire state building, and annabeth forgets to breathe. she had grieved luke, had missed him so much since that day, but he had done it. he'd stopped kronos. he had died. ]

What are you doing here? [ it comes out harsher than she intended, but she's still not convinced. something has to be wrong, this has to be some kind of trick. ] How-?