April 2025 Test Drive Meme

[singmod]

APRIL 2025 TDM

PROMPT ONE — ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST: A new group of arrivals find themselves lost in the frozen wilds and vulnerable to the dangers of nature. With luck, they make it to the town of Milton, and to a friendly face offering food, warmth and shelter — and the current inhabitants, their fellow survivors.

PROMPT TWO — THE THING WITH FEATHERS: The Aurora has long since begun to alter the behaviours of animals in the world, and the Interlopers face a threat from above.

PROMPT THREE — MISFIT: Interlopers haven’t been feeling themselves lately. And one day they wake up to find they aren’t themselves at all: they’re someone else.

ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST

WHEN: Mid-month.
WHERE: Milton, Milton Outskirts.
CONTENT WARNINGS: potential animal attacks, potential injuries, potential cold injuries/hyperthermia risk.

'You are the Interloper. You are not part of nature’s design.'

It’s the last thing you hear. A dark, deep voice. Impossibly ancient. You feel afraid. Maybe you’re dreaming, maybe you’re wide awake. You saw the lights, and then your world went dark. But you hear it in the blackness, you won’t forget those words.

These are the words of the Darkwalker, you’ll soon come to find.

You awaken. You are not where you were before. It’s different for everyone, there doesn’t seem to be much of a pattern in where you find yourself. You may open your eyes to find yourself in a cold, dim and dank cabin. The air is stale, dust hangs in the rays of weak sunlight that shine through the tiny windows. Someone lived here once, but they aren’t to be found. This place has been ransacked, abandoned long ago. It is quiet. The wood creaks around you.

Or perhaps you may awaken to find yourself shivering in the yawning maw of a cave, the freezing stone below you. Or maybe you’re unfortunate enough to sit up to find yourself lying in the snow, in the middle of the wilderness. Snow lies thick around you. It’s freezing out. You haven’t felt a cold like this before in your entire life. Cruel and biting. You have no idea where you are, and what’s worse — you are completely alone.

The sun is bright, enclosed in light fog. It is a strange kind of twilight.

You may feel different, too. Any powers or magics you may have feel... absent. Disconnected. Things that may not have affected you previously now do. Something in you has changed.

You know you can’t stay where you are. You’ll need to move, try to work out where you are and how you came to be here. So you walk, head out into the unknown, in hope of finding a trail or a road. You’ll find one soon enough. It’s here you may find someone else in the same boat as yourself, equally freezing and confused. You’ll both need to keep going. It won’t be easy. You hear howls of wolves around you, and the terrain is difficult: slips and falls are likely. You’re completely vulnerable out here in the open.

Or it’s possible you may come across someone else here. Someone who looks far better prepared to deal with the freezing cold and frozen landscape, out hunting or gathering. They’ll likely offer help and get you into town. However, for the unlucky ones who don’t come across anyone, you’ll carry on until you see it: the lazy trail of smoke rising in the air. Fire. Not just one, but several. Civilization...?

Follow it, and soon enough the way you’ve taken will certainly become a path or road. Unfolding before you in the mountainous forests, you’ll see the most welcome of sights: a small mining town tucked up in the valley. Battered, rusted road signs will direct to “MILTON, POP. 947”. You’re almost there, you keep going, and it looks like other people have had the same idea as you. In fact, you’ll hear the muffled sounds of life. People! In the town!

As you head into the outskirts and then further into town, you’ll find it’s a little easier to walk but the cold has gripped you hard. You’ll find the buildings, both shops and homes, some are dark and lifeless, some of them are boarded up, some of them are occupied. People are going about their business, or stood watching from their tiny porches of their small, timber homes. For a town this big, there doesn’t seem to be many people. Several dozen at most, but no more.

Towards the center of town, you’ll find the building from which the biggest of the smoke trail rises: a school-house of sorts, or some kind of community hall. Perhaps both. You’ll find more and more people all drawn to this place, each and every one of them in the same position as yourself (and your companion, if you’ve found one). Some are in worse states than others: some are bloodied, nursing bite wounds or cuts; others might have some other kind of injury sustained in the journey here from falls. Others may look as if they could faint from the cold at any second.

The door opens, and you’re greeted by the gnarled, wizened face of an elderly man, dressed in thick furs. He has a kind face. He smiles warmly, and with pity, ushering you in with haste.

“Ah. Once more, you poor souls come.” he nods gravely. No, this is not the first time that this has happened. “I am Methuselah. I welcome you, Newcomer, although I’m sorry for how you’ve come to find yourself here. You are not the only one, the lights are changing things. Come. Mother Nature has not been kind to you, but there are plenty here to help.”

The room is dim, lit only by natural daylight through the windows. A roaring fire sits at one end of the huge hall. It crackles, bright and cheerful... and warm. Even as big as this place is, the room is pleasantly warm. You’ll also find basic cots set up down one side of the hall, and while it seems there's a few people already living here, there's enough space for those in need of them. There's places to rest for a moment and get your bearings, or just trying to recover from the cold. Down the other side are tables and chairs, and long tables laden with food, drinks and bottled water similar to one might find at a soup kitchen. Once again, Methuselah offers a feast, aided by some of the other Interlopers.

There are canisters with hot herbal teas, mostly. But some coffee can be found. There’s also soup and stew and trays of charred deer and rabbit meats, plus some grilled fish. It’s very basic, but it’s hot and filling. A feast for those who have battled the cold to come here.

Methuselah will continue to busy himself, still; there is plenty to do. He will fetch blankets, tend to wounds, serve food and drinks — aided by a handful of others in the Hall. Your fellow survivors, but those who have been here for some time now. He does not have much time to talk. More and more people seem to be coming in from the cold. He will not stop to sit and rest until everyone is seen to, taking up a place by the fire to gaze silently into its flames.

He will encourage newcomers to get warm and eat, and when they are ready to — they can explore the town and find one of the many empty homes to call their own. He will not speak much, but gesture to your fellow survivors. They will have better answers than him.

THE THING WITH FEATHERS

WHEN: Throughout the month.
WHERE: Milton area.
CONTENT WARNINGS: animal attacks, altered wildlife, gore, possible character injury/death, possible animal injury/death.

It is no secret that nature has been warped here somehow. Interlopers discovered this in the very early days of their time in the Northern Territories, when packs of wolves descended upon Milton. A frightening and terrible thing to try and survive — plenty were injured in the attack, a few unlucky Interlopers even lost their lives during that time.

There have been other ways in which the world around them has become strange: extreme weather, shifts to the flora of the world, changes in native animal behaviour, supernatural creatures, beats from the world’s old stories—

It is hard to tell what may happen next.

The flocks of crows are common sight enough, soaring through the skies, and often the heralds of death: a body, human or animal is close by. But soon enough, the crows began to gather in large groups around Milton. They watch the Interlopers with interest, and seem less easily scared by the people around them. That is the start of things.

Over time, their behaviour grows… unsettling. Interlopers who attempt to chase, scare or even hunt the birds will be met with squawks and even attempts to divebomb. Crows are very intelligent creatures, after all. They recognise the fact that someone is trying to harm them. An Interloper might even kill a crow will be met with raucous anger with their fallen fellow crow. They Will Remember That.

But what is stranger still is to see the birds fighting amongst themselves whilst in flight.

It’s hard to tell why the crows fight one another, but it’s a startling sight to see: the birds tackling into one another, talons trying to rip one another to shreds as they swoop and rise in the chilly air. Some will die, too, and even if one misses such fights in the skies — it is common to find the bloodied remains in the snow, feathers strewn about.

Soon enough, Interlopers may find themselves jumping at the sudden sound of something quick slamming against a door, a window, a roof, a half-buried car in the ground. Investigating will find freshly-dead crows with broken necks, glass cracked where their beaks have struck glass, blood upon wood.

And in time, the birds will stop their assault against themselves. They will turn their attentions to those below: other animals, and to the Interlopers themselves — flocking in huge groups to divebomb the unsuspecting below.

To be set upon is to be met with beaks and claws: the birds are set upon tearing you to shreds, a fluttering fury whirling around you. The best you can do is to try and protect your body from the attack, or run. The birds will be kept back by flames, filling the air with burning feathers as they try to flee — but the best that can be done is Interlopers find somewhere indoors to hide. At the very least, these birds are no stronger than usual animals changed by the Aurora — but they will likely cause some damage to buildings, particularly windows, as they try to get themselves inside.

In time, they will give up their pursuit, finding something else to focus their attention on — whether it be another unfortunate Interloper or some other poor animal.

MISFIT

WHEN: Throughout the month of April.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: personality shifts; body-swapping; possible themes of body dysmorphia; potential body horror, of a sort.

In the month of April, Interlopers have days when they feel….. off. It’s in little ways, at first. Maybe you don’t feel as brave as you normally are, or feel a little more melancholy when your spirit is usually upbeat. Changes in your personality. Little things.

Or perhaps it’s particular habits you keep. Maybe you find yourself not liking your tea the usual way like it. Maybe you find yourself less of an early bird, or prefer to sleep in a different position that you usually do. Those sorts of things.

It is really all that strange, considering the circumstances? Far from friends, family? Stranded in an unfamiliar place, with little-to-no luxuries or even the most basic amenities? Cold and hungry and afraid? God forbid someone feel unlike themselves for existing in this place, just trying to survive.

Eventually, you realise, something is far more wrong than those little shifts in personality or in personal habits. One morning you wake up and you feel… physically different. The weight of you shifts differently, and as you pull yourself out of bed, your perspective is different. Your limbs don’t feel like your own, and as you look at yourself— it doesn’t look like you.

It’s only when you find yourself a mirror do you really realise: you aren’t you at all, you’re someone else.

You’re in someone else’s body.

How do you broach this new existence? Do you roll with it? Do you recognise who you’ve become? Do you feel shame, embarrassment, or an opportunity to cause a little chaos? Are you curious, or very much determined to put an end to this nonsense? Are you horrified? Feeling a deep and strange feeling of wrongness?

Go look, and you’ll…. Well, find yourself. Eventually, somewhere in town is the person whose body you’re currently stuck in, now stuck in yours.

Good luck dealing with that, Interloper.

It’s not permanent, though. Probably. Maybe.

What’s that old saying? Something about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes? That might have something to it.

FAQs

ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST

1. Arrival threads can be treated as game canon.

2. Items characters have brought from home can be found either strewn around them when they awaken, or in the community hall — as if someone left them out for them to collect. Methuselah will not know how they got there, and will be quite bemused by the happenings.

3. Reminder that all characters are now depowered upon arrival. They can choose not to notice it at first, or can immediately sense something is different about them.

4. If asked any personal questions, Methuselah will smile and say "Oh, you don't want to know about an old man like me. But I have lived all over in these parts for all my life." He will be more concerned with trying to help Newcomers, and is genuinely concerned for them and their well-being. Other Interlopers will say much of the same — there's little to know about him.

5. More information about Milton can be found here.

THE THING WITH FEATHERS

1. Interlopers who have hunted the crows previously will find themselves subject to more aggression in their attacks, and the crows will be less likely to give up their hunt for them if they choose to hide.

2. Which... yes, you can eat the crows. It isn't recommended, as they are carrion birds.

MISFIT

1. This prompt is pretty flexible in how players wish to approach this! Interlopers can wake up in the other's home in the other's body and come face to face with a stranger's home and potential housemates. Alternatively, they can find themselves in their own homes but their body has swapped. This would also mean that whatever clothes they happened to wear to bed that night would now not properly fit them. Oops.

2. Interlopers can undo the body swap by talking it out and trying to reach a moment of empathy and understanding with the other.

3. If Interlopers don't reach that understanding, the 'curse' will eventually run its course after 72 hours.

TALES FROM THE NORTHERN TERRITORIES NEWSLETTER

Comments

QUESTIONS

[singmod]

Ask them here.

Re: QUESTIONS

[lestercraft]

Do people's aurora feats stay with the character's mind/soul/self or their physical body?

Re: QUESTIONS

[friendsfordinner]

How supernaturally smart are the crows? For example, if someone eats one in wolf form, would the crows still be able to figure out 'hey, that person ate some of us'?

Natalie Scatorccio | Yellowjackets

[pitofguilt]

[ ooc: canon point is post s2 finale :') ]


the thing with feathers

Those crows are not right.

[ A deadpan statement as Natalie stands just outside a building, watching a pair of birds duke it out in mid-air. ]

Whole place isn't right, if we're honest, but that's something else. Some bad omen shit.

[ Some "the Wilderness is speaking to us" shit. ]

Think they'll stop if we offer 'em nuts?


misfit

[ Congratulations! You now find yourself in the body of a rail-thin middle-aged white woman with a history of substance abuse, smoking, and sports. Her body is in better shape than it looks, with muscle memory making it look relaxed and cat-like and giving you wicked good aim if you feel inclined to try hitting a target. No notable aches and pains, overall a good, solid body.

That nervous system, though. It's seen some shit.

There's a subtle, pervasive, whole-body sense that nothing is safe in the frigid cold of Canada. That your shelter is easy to destroy, your next meal never guaranteed, your alliances a mere moment from flipping against you. This body finds this whole experience familiar, and brutality is part of the memories these cells carry.

Most of the clothes available to you are good for this body's height but far too wide. At least they feel cozy?

If you try and find Natalie, you might recognize her in the way she positions herself in repose. Thing lounging cat or sleeping jaguar, sleek and flexible and liable to cause injury if provoked-- except whatever body she's inhabitting right now will look distinctly wrong in the shapes she puts it in. (Sorry about the backache she's leaving you with.) ]


wildcard

[ Want an arrival thread? A foraging thread? A 'hanging out having homebrew booze and shooting the shit' thread? Let's do it! punnyinpink ]

misfit

[brushoff]

[ Congratulations, Natalie! You now find yourself in the body of a very svelte, very attractive twenty-something male who has a body that looks like it's never done any physical labor in it's life. Wandering around and doing things in this body feels like an Olympic level gymnast was suddenly thrown into the deep end of a pool. His body may never scar, but it remembers. Nothing is safe, things might kill you, but you've survived worse before. You know what you're doing and you'll survive.

But also, you are entirely out of your fucking element.

And equally? You feel like shit. Being out and about in the daylight feels terrible, awful, like you're trying to push past a fever. It's doable. It's possible to be out and about in the light. But wow, do you feel like shit.

Also, unfortunately for Natalie, there's no cozy oversized clothing here. Dorian still hasn't gotten over the fact that the Arctic is a terrible place to wear form-fitting clothes. Have fun dealing with skinny jeans.

Dorian's found the smallest and tightest of the clothes that Natalie owns. Is this practical? No. Do his boobs look terrific? Absolutely. As he spots her in his body (straighten up! you'll give him a crick in his back!), he storms over with an annoyed little huff. ]

At least sit up straight. You're going to fall out of that chair if you're not careful and then what? You'll bruise me!

Feathers

[desperate_times_right]

Might work.

[It's heading into evening so Chloe is out and about, but still isn't faring that well in the sun. She looks like she hasn't slept in days.]

There's a lake monster in the resort town who leaves you alone if you give it stuff.

Chloe Frazer, by the way. You new?

feathers

[temujackie]

[ the girl stepping up next to natalie might not be instantly recognizable to her—after all, it's been a long, long time. then again, memories of the wilderness are hard to forget, right? all the worst ones always are.

whether natalie recognizes her or not, melissa doesn't recognize nat, at least not right away. the voice is the thing that comes closest to sparking recognition, but she's not expecting the body it comes out of.

melissa doesn't cross her arms because her right one is still wrapped up in that shitty makeshift sling reappropriated from someone's old jacket, but she wants to. instead she curls her left hand into a loose fist and picks nervously at the hem of her shirt. ]

No fucking way! You're just going to draw more attention to us. [ bad omen shit is right. ]

the crows are here...

[satanicpanics]

[ Eddie has only been back for about two months, but he’s already fallen back into he rhythm of how things work here. Snow, more snow, aurora, snow again, weird supernatural happening, snow. Right now, they’re apparently on the “weird supernatural happening” part of the month.

But he’s been enthralled by the crows. He’s watched them since their arrival and tried and failed to befriend them, hoping to lure one into becoming his companion. Maybe his failure was for the best, because there’s something wrong with them. ]

Yeah, most likely.

[ He answers the woman in a flat, matter-of-fact tone because…well, she’s probably right. He’s a metalhead; he knows what crows symbolize, and he knows what this place is capable of. ]

I think it’s going to take more than nuts to break up Bird Wrestlemania up there, but uh…worth a shot. Assuming you have something on you.

the thing with feathers

[cactusy]

Could've been a tough winter for them. Maybe they're starving; turning to cannibalism.

[Sorry, Natalie; Shaw has no idea the raw wound she's inadvertently rubbing against. She's barely looking at her, truthfully: she's slumped against the side of the Community Hall, taking a breather before heading up the steps. She's been putting too much strain on her dumb, annoying wounds, she knows, but god does she hate having to take it easy.]

misfit

[meadqueen]

[The most notable thing about the body that Natalie’s found herself inhabiting is the missing right eye. The loss has been part of the body long enough now that it automatically compensates for some things like avoiding doorframes and estimating distance.

She's shorter and stockier than Natalie, strong both from building a village with her own hands and from a power gained here and typically kept on a tight leash.

Natalie’s body finds her in the community hall. Her hair is in a tight braid and she's carrying a lot of tension in her body, shoulders tight and hands curled into fists.]

It seems we each have something that belongs to the other.

Detective Noel | Malevolent

[the_second_noel]

[ Spoilers through to the end of season 4 of Malevolent! ]

1. arrival

Charlie Dowd is not in Spain.

He's also not dead. Being dead would probably hurt less.

(And he's not dreaming. Until proven otherwise, he's not dreaming. Because he couldn't fucking handle it if he was.)

He's also not bleeding from the throat any more, though when he puts his hand to his neck he feels the small, hard lump of the bullet inside. Jarringly neat, as if a doctor sewed him up and left it there. The scar it made feels like a soft walnut. He doesn't know if he's lost time or if--

And then the cold gets too sharp, and he shelves that thought for somewhere warmer. He is where he is and he's facing what he's facing, and what he's facing seems to involve a very long walk. (Old classics.)

In what direction? Well, there's a road down here. That'll work.


At one point he stumbles across a snow-covered car -- to his eyes, a very weird-looking car -- flashing its lights and spitting static from its radio under the glow of the aurora. He wastes some time trying to get it to start, but not much time, because his fingers don't really want to move any more.


When he gets to the outskirts of town, he's just stumbling. One foot in front of the other in front of the other, rolling forwards with clumsy momentum. There's a big red garment wrapped around him -- maybe a blanket from a distance; a stained robe from up close -- for as much extra warmth as he can glean from it, and his face is very white. It's been a bit of a hike.

But a building ahead has smoke and light, and people milling around it, and Charlie can let himself pass out or whatever when he gets inside and not a second before.


2. methuselah's feast

The fucking frog is there in the goddamn fucking lost-and-found.

It's a little glass paperweight of a green frog with a goofy face. Noel bought it in his first weeks back on earth, stupidly, because he saw it and it made him have a crying fit in a pawn shop. The proprietress didn't ask. God bless her and god bless New York.

It wasn't on his person when he opened his eyes in the snow. Now he can take the pin out of that thought, because instead of there, it's here. And what the fuck does that mean? The soup these people so generously served is turning over in his stomach.

And what's more, some motherfucker is standing at the little table of assorted belongings, frog in hand, taking a look at it.

Charlie slides in beside them, affable and easy as you please, with a half-grin and a hand out for the ornament. "Pardon me, pal, that one's mine."


3. misfit

Some bodies are temples, some bodies are prisons, and Charlie's body is an all-inclusive hotel in the country of Shit. It has the aches and pains of a man twice his age, and three missing toes, and would kill a man for a single cigarette. Its sense of smell is dogshit and it doesn't really have functioning hunger signals any more. In its nervous system, something has fried: a muscle worked until it tore in half, hyperactive prey instinct on one side, a rabbit on its back on the other, both somehow working together with a pinch of pizazz to do a pretty great impression of a human.

His body is also fit, fitter than the tobacco cravings would suggest, and it's strong, and it's still got its good looks. Good aim, good dexterity. Could certainly be worse. If you are unhappy with your booking then please inform the front desk for a refund within 72 hours.

If you wake up as Charlie, you'll also be waking up to Charlie's roommates, and one of them is a little on the stranger side.



There is also the small matter of the time when he wakes up as Nat, just a couple days in, and the increasingly fragile hold he has on all of this being real finally slips.

His first thought is: starvation-thin. He's been there before. He can feel the shapes of all his ribs, and as his hand descends it knocks a finger against each one on the way down. "No," he says, on each. And before he can even process the thought two years, he goes back further, because he's been a woman before, too. Charlie's been a woman. Noel's been a wife. Shit, he thinks he was probably even pregnant once. Sometimes the King played good cop, though he was impatient, always adding too much stick.

Is impatient. Is--

Two years. Plus. Lorick. John, Arthur. Roland's lighter lifted to Charlie's cigarette like Roland never died. Dissolving. It's horrible how much sense it makes to see them dissolve.

Nat's sense of instability and danger is such an old friend that he doesn't even notice it's not his own.

"That was a mean one, boss," he says shakily, right on the edge of something drastic.

Maybe he says it to another interloper, who opened their home to a woman called Nat who had a lot less of a New York accent last night. Or maybe he's alone in the cabin, and you're only alerted that something's going on when you hear incoherent shouts and something banging on the wall from inside.

( So that you're forewarned, I'll mention that it will take a while to get much sensible out of Charlie in this one, he may hurt himself, and he might start taking swings if the conversation goes wrong. It's been one of those weeks. )


4. wildcard!

Whoever, whenever, wherever, whatever -- I'm weeezing on discord and plurk.

arrival

[dies_irate]

It's harder to tell what John is these days.

Oh, he's still seven, eight feet tall with the horns. And he's still got a face as dark as the void. And those are definitely not boots.

But when he's outside, the hood stays up and he's wrapped up in a dozen blankets and looks more like a shambling laundry pile than an eldritch horror, the golden eyes peering out through an old sheet or something or maybe someone's dress that's been made into a big scarf to wrap around himself. Those eyes are sharp enough, though, and they spot someone coming in from the wilderness, concerned now that he's very much learned what 'cold' and 'tiredness' and 'injuries' feel like.

When he spots the face, that's what has him calling out.

"Noel!?"

2

[notarat]

It seems that the reaction of the man holding the frog is - at first - nothing but a blink. It's hard to read the man's face otherwise. It seems very neutral, very calm. Billy uses that same calm to just hand the frog over to the other without much of a complaint. It's not like he wanted the thing, anyway. And he sure isn't stealing other people's belongings.

(... well, not as much as they're not useful and it's not needed, anyway.)

He stares at Charlie's half-grin for a moment before he says: "You own a frog statue that made it all the way here?" At least it gives a hint as to why Billy was touching the thing at all. It's likely the man was just curious as to why something like that was here in the first place.

misfit

[pitofguilt]

The body she wakes up in feels enough like her own that Natalie doesn't suspect anything has happened until she opens her eyes and sees the person next to her... and the horns on said person's head.

She shoves herself backwards and falls gracelessly out of the bed, and, if this other person decides to look over at any point within the next 5-10 seconds, they'll see her (in Charlie's body) fighting to disentangle herself from the sheets.

2. methuselah's feast

[sukeltaja]

Oh. It's been a while since he's gotten 'pal' before. It's as smooth as the tone of voice, too, and Zane blinks out of the reverie he'd had while staring at the little, charming paperweight.

His fingers close around it protectively, eyes narrowing, casting a suspicious look to the smooth talker with a very obvious need for it. His lower lip juts out in a pout despite his tall stature and middle aged appearance, somewhat childish.

"I'll have to trade you."

2

[riotgrrrls]

The "motherfucker" and "pal" in question happens to be a teenage girl in overalls.

It's not like Kat's going to steal somebody else's shit from the lost and found or anything. The frog just caught her eye as she was rummaging around for her own stuff — it reminds her of something Swann might have. That’s the only reason she’d picked it up at all. God, she’s only been here for, what, like a couple of hours now? And she misses her friends so, so much. It feels like she's never going to see them again. Maybe she won't.

It's — ugh, she's fucking crying over this stupid paperweight. If this little glass frog had a nickel for every time this has happened... well. You know.

Anyway, when some old dude comes at her with the "hey pal" shtick, it rubs her so entirely in the wrong way that she almost wants to turn and yell at him, to flip him off, to tell him to go fuck right off into the blizzard already, but she doesn't do any of those things, because she doesn't want him to see her cry.

Instead she keeps staring at the frog, just sort of like willing the tears to suck back up into her eyes or something — which doesn't happen. But she sniffles and clears her throat and scowls and when she does turn to face him, she's pale and red-nosed and watery-eyed but it is very cold out there, so who can blame her?

“Here.” She plunks it down into his open hand and immediately looks back down at the other stuff on the table. "I wasn't going to take it."

Tim Gutterson | Justified

[comfortablyerect]

arrival

[ Tim awakes in a cave.

That part, actually, is quite familiar. Too much time spent over too many years tucked away on cliff sides in the desert, watching and waiting. Even nearly two years stateside, he still wakes up with sand between his teeth, feeling hard rock beneath his spine instead of his soft mattress, a ringing in his ears and gunpowder burning his nose.

This is different. Completely foreign. At least if it were a PTSD episode, there would be some sense of familiarity. But there's none. This isn't the sharp landscapes of Afghanistan or the rolling hills of Kentucky. It's white and desolate, and it's fucking freezing.

There's only a few minutes of initial panic before self-preservation takes over. There's an order to these things. Shelter, water, food. He has his sidearm, at least, and an extra clip to go with it. And for some reason the very same copy of The Hobbit he'd fallen asleep reading. He's horribly underdressed, though. The chill bites right down to his bones.

As he heads in the direction of the smoke curling into the sky, the gun is held loosely at his side. He may or may not immediately point it at the first thing he sees or hears. ]

feast

[ Nothing makes any more sense than it did when he woke up, but at least he's by a fire now.

Sort of. He's off to one side of it, absorbing some of the tangential heat, but actually more concerned with keeping his back to the wall and his eyes on the room. So far, everyone seems relatively harmless. Enough that he's tucked his gun into the back of his jeans in favor of holding a bottle of water. He hasn't eaten, though he's absolutely starving after the long walk to Milton. What he has done is clock every exit, note who's packing weapons, and keep track of the changing number of people in the room as folks come and go.

The next person to come within earshot gets a question. ]

Hey-- is there any way to get a stiff drink around here?

[ Should that really be one of his priorities? Yes, actually, it's right there between water and food. Somebody please tell him they don't all have to do this stone-cold sober. ]

feathers

What the hell is goin' on?

[ Specifically, what the hell is going on with the damn crows. He's standing on an edge of trees on the outskirts of Milton, an abandoned pile of twigs and broken branches beside him, watching the crows in the sky as they tear each other apart. He's not a wildlife expert by any means, but he knows how birds are supposed to act. And it's not like this.

A crow drops straight down from the sky, landing as a black and red splotch in the snow a hundred feet away. ]

They always act like this?

[ Hey-- did the crows suddenly turn their attention in this direction? ]

wildcard

[ Feel free to throw your own prompt at me too, I'm open to anything! You can find me at raye_nbow for any chatting/plotting stuff. I fully intend on reserving and apping so we'll see how it goes! ]

feast

[desperate_times_right]

It's not strictly good, but there is alcohol here.

[The woman who sits next to him has a hunting knife in a sheath on her hip, and a little .45 Defender in a holster at the small of her back. She smiles. It hasn't been often lately that they get to meet new people.]

A couple of people here distill fucking pine needles or something. It tastes like shit, but it does the job. I think most of the houses around here have been scavenged of any good stuff on that front, so your only other option’s the Christmas pig.

Root | Person of Interest

[computation]

[!]:./arrival

Root assumes she's dead at first. There's quite a few reasons to draw this conclusion: her clothes are bloody but the wounds under them are closed up, scarring nicely already; the sky is cascading colors across the night, not just an aurora but a whole spectacle of the universe; and she's stuck in a frozen hellscape with the wind whistling past her. She finds Bear just as her fingertips start to fully freeze and the two things together convince her she is not, in fact, dead, or at least not in any way that matters.

She spends the next few days getting to grips with her surroundings, thankful she has Bear to talk to as she keeps up an occasional murmured stream of chatter. Root is a city girl but she grew up in a small town and she knows at least a few things. She has a knife and that lovely tactical shotgun she'd stolen off the police officer ages ago, though she quickly realizes she's going to need to conserve ammo, bad.

There's a tiny cabin nearby that's structurally sound enough to provide protection from the weather, and Root makes that her temporary base of operations as she scrounges around the area for supplies. She gets some better clothing for herself -- looking fairly comical bundled up in all these men's layers, but it keeps her alive, four pairs of socks on to make her feet fit into the work boots she found -- and she used her knife to cut up a the outer shell of a half-destroyed parka. She took the strips and some duct tape and made little booties for Bear. She has to make new ones every couple days, but his poor little paws need protection from the snow and ice.

Her cochlear implant is on the fritz the whole time. Her implant intermittently crackling and shrieking keeps making her wince in surprise, so she turns it off, thinking about how hard it's going to be to find a way to recharge it. More than once she's intensely grateful to have Bear, who has far more acute hearing than her even when both of her ears are working, and warns her of nearby threats. His presence seems to act as a decent deterrent to the wolves, too, at least for now.

Eventually she feels well equipped enough to leave her temporary base, and she suits up herself and Bear -- who's wearing a child's tattered down vest as well as his makeshift booties -- as she heads out, shotgun at the ready. It's slow going through the snow, and she really has no idea where she's going or where there even is to go to, but she can't stay here forever. There's very little food, for one thing.

When she sees traces of civilization -- smoke in the distance -- her heart lurches with painful hope, and she swerves to head right toward it.

[!]:./milton

She's pathetically relieved to find real shelter, fire and food. It's another knock against this being purgatory -- which truthfully wasn't her favorite explanation to start with; Root's a staunch atheist in technical terms -- and it feels very real, raw and desperate, to warm up and eat. Like she really is alive.

As a responsible dog owner, she takes care of Bear first. He's a beautiful and well-kept Belgian Malinois, highly alert and at attention in the circumstances, clearly working. He stays still and focused as Root removes his tattered child's vest she'd found in that first cabin, and then carefully cuts off the taped-up booties. She brings over a full bowl of stew and sets it unapologetically on the floor for Bear by the cot she's claimed, then finally says, "Ontspannen."

Bear practically crashes into the soup, sloshing it everywhere as he eats frantically.

Root lets out a long breath and starts the process of taking off the many ragged layers she'd cobbled together. Soon there's piles of fabric getting strewn across her cot and she's starting to reveal skin, stopping when there's just a tanktop left.

"Anybody have a comb around here?" she asks the room generally, voice pitched to carry and devoid of shame. Her hair is a disaster.

[!]:./crows

Once the immediate necessities are taken care of, Root sets off exploring Milton with Bear by her side. They're both in much better spirits having found something approaching civilization and other people, and Root isn't shy about poking her head into any given building, whether it looks boarded up or occupied. She can be found rather rudely pushing her way into buildings all across Milton.

Of course, she notices the crows. However effective her shotgun would be on birds -- ironically the intended purpose of a shotgun -- her limited ammunition makes her extremely reluctant to waste a shot when there's so many of the damn things around. So her mind turns to alternate bird deterrents...

She's acquired a horrifically ancient half-empty bottle of vinegar and is standing on the street, looking at it thoughtfully. It's absolutely vile.


[ ooc: Also totally happy to do the body swap prompt or anything else, feel free!! ]

c

[friendsfordinner]

"You've got a dog," Hickey points out, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. He's been watching Root, idly paying attention as she explores, as she looks at the crows, as she looks at that bottle of vinegar that he can smell even from here—Christ that thing reeks to high heaven.

"You're obviously thinking about the birds. Send the dog to chase them away before you do whatever you're thinking of doing."

Yeah, the dog might get pecked. But it's a dog! It'll be fine. Right? Maybe? Cornelius Hickey is very much not an animal person.

Solomon Tozer | The Terror

[firstinline]

a. arrival

[ It's cold, and silent, and still. Screams no longer rend the air, shale no longer slides underfoot. His ears are ringing, ghosts of the battle he's been ripped from. His heart still sprints in his chest. He clings to the clarity of mind that had come with combat, and only then thinks to wonder that he can think, and hear, and feel at all.

His lashes flutter, his eyes open, staring up into the dark that now surrounds him, and for a moment fear touches him again. Is he in the belly of the beast? Has his soul, immortal and so very fragile, gossamer-thin, been devoured by the thing the way he witnessed it supping on Mr. Collins? Has he found himself now in some new hell, an eternity of fresh torment?

But after a moment, his vision clears. He blinks again and sees: not the rocky, windswept site of their last stand, but stars above, veiled in the strange shifting colors of the Aurora, and the dark silhouettes of trees stretching upwards. Somewhere in the distance, a creature howls, and he scrambles upward at once, reflexively reaching for a weapon, for something, anything, he can use to defend himself. His fingers curl around the familiar heavy stock of a gun, cold and wet from lying in the snow — he can only hope the powder hasn't been ruined —

He looks down again, more slowly, at the weapon now held in his hands. Not the shotgun tossed to him and snugged tightly against the crook of his shoulder in those last moments — no, it's the long slender needle of a Brown Bess, the same gun he carried when he was still a Marine and not a mutineer.

He has only a moment to puzzle over it, over finding himself in this strange place, shivering in the shirt and trousers he'd worn on that damned doomed trek, before another sound comes to his ears: the crunch of a boot in snow or the snap of a twig or a whistle, not unlike the one he'd purported to hear that day in the fog. Tozer wheels, bringing the musket up to bear with the rapid precision of long familiarity, eyes intent as he sights along the barrel. ]

Who's there? Show yourself!

b. feast

[ Food. He scents it, and his salivary glands ache with the suddenness of it as his mouth floods. He can't remember a time when he wasn't hungry. He makes his way into the community hall, shabby and scruffy, and directs his steps toward the food, which turns out not to be a mirage after all.

But — like so many of his shipmates before, though he couldn't know it — he avoids the tinned vegetables and meats, opting instead for a bowl of some kind of stew, rich with fresh, red meat and a few root vegetables. He brings it to a chair a little ways away from the crowd and sits with it in his lap, staring at the spoon in his hand, the way the gravy coats its bowl. Despite the hollow, cramping feeling in his stomach, he eats slowly, half a spoonful at a time, trying to keep from making himself sick.

He doesn't ask where the meat came from. And when his spoon scrapes the bottom of the bowl, though his shrunken stomach is uncomfortably tight, he can be found looking back over at the spread of victuals with an expression almost too covetous to be called hunger, though he keeps to his chair and doesn't go for more. ]

c. the thing with feathers

[ There's grim familiarity in his eyes as he watches the birds battle, flaying feathers from one another and disturbing the air with deafening squawks. If anyone stops to wonder aloud what could have driven them to this infighting, he'll lift one shoulder, sardonic, in his answer. ]

Maybe they're hungry. Drives a man to madness, stands to reason it'd do the same to them, too.

[ or wildcard me! ]

a, hey bestiiiiiie

[friendsfordinner]

[ Methusalah is in town, preparing for the feast. That's nice, of course, and Hickey will absolutely partake in that, but that doesn't change the fact that he needs to eat. That while it's day, while animals are out and about, he'll need to check the snares, to see if he caught anything.

And he has made such a good choice in doing so today. As he steps into Tozer's sight, as that rifle is pointed at him, Hickey's eyes light up with a noticeable brightness. There we go, Aurora. Enola. Whoever the fuck brings them here. He's been asking for this for a while, someone from home more susceptible to his way of thinking, not one of Crozier's cronies or Fitzjames's hangers-on. Was that too hard?

This is certainly Cornelius Hickey: alive, in one piece, tongue intact. But he's been here a year and a half. Things have changed. Hickey is still slim, nothing can fully erase that skinny wiry ratness innate to his being. But there's a difference between slim and starving. There's a difference between wiry and gaunt. Plus, he's wearing some wild clothes compared to Tozer's 1840s frame of reference. Deerskin boots, a gore-tex jacket, a scarf, a 2010s style hat—clothes designed to survive the winter. Silence falls between the two for a moment as Hickey looks at Tozer. He is absolutely delighted to see the man, but that's only noticeable through the shine in his eyes and a small hint of a smile.

But there's kind of also a gun. Might want to focus on that first. ]

Sergeant Tozer. I'd suggest you lower that rifle.

Max Rockatansky | Mad Max (current character)

[pursuitspecial]

CLOSED STARTER(S).

also open to wildcards, tag ins, and other shenanigans!
ATOMPUNK ⁞ PM ⁞ ask for discord

closed to furiosa.

[pursuitspecial]

01. [ MISFIT ] (but where else have you belonged, anyway?)

[ There's nothing to it, waking up wrong. Max has been doing that for years. Dust in places it shouldn't be. Things gone that should still be with him. Waking up cold when it's warm, or warm when it's cold. Not sleeping at all — or sleeping too much. Other than human behavior, the unpredictability of the Wasteland is the predictable part, and Max is so fined tuned to the disharmony between the body and the self that he doesn't blink much when it happens anywhere.

Anywhere except here, because this place is different. The wrongness Max is accustomed to are things that don't make any sense. The appetite build up over the past month gone in the mornings. His usually bum knee so springy and fit, he feels ten years younger. The changes don't last, but they're enough to get Max to examine himself when he wakes, expecting flipped switches.

It's late when he wakes. Hard to tell without working watches or clocks, but his head's groggy from heavy sleep. His head that feels clearer, his body that feels lighter. Not like what happened after the dream and the lights — different. Much different. It's not until Max attempts to throw covers off his body that he sees it: a slender hand in place of his own.

Quickly he rights himself, to come to a stunning realization as he tries to push himself upright with an elbow: he is missing his hand.

Something flushes through him, like being doused in freezing water, churning mightily as he looks down to examine the rest of himself.

Different body. Female. Decidedly not his. But definitely belonging to someone he knows.

Someone who's downstairs. No, someone who's upstairs, in his room. Because this room isn't his, either.

Ignoring the mirrors in the adjoining bathroom, Max rushes out to the collective living area, nearly tripping over his own feet and the noticeably different center of gravity. ]

Deacon St John ☠ Days Gone

[farewelldrifter]

[cw: descriptions of fresh burn injuries.]

Arrival.

The excursion to Iron Butte had really not been what Deacon had been expecting when he rode out with Sizzo to scavenge for detonator cords. It's a long, complicated story with a healthy dose of the past coming to bite you in the ass from well before the world went to shit, but the most pressing concern for Deacon had been trying to escape a Ripper cultist compound, alone, with a heavily seared right arm still radiating heat from the flesh, with the need to rescue a teenager thrown into the mix. Y'know, regular Tuesday kinda stuff.

He'd braced a hand braced against the doorframe of the ruined house he'd rescued Lisa in before sending her away to safety, and was considering his next moves, trying to work out how the hell he was going to make it out of the compound alive and warn Lost Lake about the incoming Ripper attack.

That was the last thing Deacon remembers before the aurora surrounds his vision and drags him down into a strange unconsciousness like nothing he's ever experienced before; greens, blues and purple and then blackness.

Before Deacon opens his eyes, he shifts with a stiff, bone-heavy discomfort as his body creaks. Then his consciousness starts to filter back to him and, no, that's not the sound of him, but of the rickety wood underneath him, groaning with the movement of his weight as he slowly sits up and looks around. An old cabin, vacant and cold with gaps where icy drafts creep inside and the dust drift through the still air like snowflakes.

What happened? Where is he? When was he brought here? A lot of questions that have no answers if he stays in one place, and in Deacon's experience staying put for too long is just waiting for something unpleasant to find its way to you.

So he drags himself to his feet, hisses and curses under his breath at the fresh pain still radiating in his arm, and heads to the door and out into the snowy twilight.

Somehow, he already knows, this doesn't feel like the air of Oregon.

Milton.

Where there's smoke, there's fire. And where there's fire... Well, it's generally a mixed bag, but chances are at least that there aren't Freakers. Or if there are, the only hope is they tore through whoever made the fire first.

Towns at the end of world aren't exactly uncommon, they just don't always have enough people living in them now to have anyone left to make fires, so as Deacon approaches Milton, it's with caution. Always with caution; can't trust no one with nothing when there's not enough to go around and everything is worth killing for. At least that's Deacon's experience.

So as he creeps around the town, observing, Deacon's not entirely sure what to make of what he finds. People, sure, but not many, and there's an overall energy in the air that Deacon hasn't felt in a long time, something akin to a welcoming that's open and to all. The camps he's seen before have all been pretty closed ranks, suspicious of newcomers at best, workcamps if you're unlucky, and a damn death cult if you're at your worst.

Deacon hangs back still trying to sneak around unnoticed as he watches the movement congregating around the front of the community hall, trying to decide his next move because everything he's seeing just sort of feels like--

"Yeah, sure feels like a trap if I ever did see one. Like saying you got puppies in the back of that van of yours..."

One thing about being out on your own so much, sometimes you just kind of mutter to yourself, because who else are you going to talk to. Other problem with that though is sometimes when you talk to yourself, something else hears you and talks back.

The Thing With Feathers.

You get real used to creatures acting weird when a virus has taken hold of your world, but sometimes there's not much to do except make a face when the behaviour is really weird. And these crows sure are really weird.

Arms folded across his chest, Deacon juts his chin out in the direction of a little crow battle taking place across the way.

"See, if we were still in Kansas, Toto, we'd be calling those Criers and tracking down their nests to burn 'em all out."

Does that make him Dorothy? Well, it doesn't really matter because whoever is closest to him when he says that probably isn't a cairn terrier.

He's so focused on the bird battle, Deacon doesn't see a speeding black blur go crashing into the window a few inches from his head, but best believe the moment the crash rings out he jumps to the side with an reflexive grab for his knife.

"God damn it--! Fuck, man! What do you do about shit like that out here?!"

Wildcard.

[ Hit me! ]

milton

[bigbaddy]

Honestly, talking to yourself is probably one of the least weird thing people here do.

But the words manage to catch Bigby's attention all the same as he's making his way over towards the community hall - causing the man to stop and raise an eyebrow as he's looking over at Deacon. It's not exactly a bad thing to be suspicious of things in this place, considering how many damn things here end up being dangerous, but it can get to levels of paranoid. Especially from a new guy.

(Deacon looks like a new guy, anyway. Bigby is pretty sure he otherwise knows every single face in town here.)

"So what are you going to do, huh? Just turn around and walk back into the snow?"

michael 'robby' robinavitch | the pitt | voicetesting!

[pittchief]

🩺 methuselah's feast / arrival
one.

[ The music isn't playing any more. There's only silence. His phone is dead. He pulls one headphone as he sits up in the snow, staring with wide eyes. It's July. And freezing. And he already knows if he doesn't get moving, that cold will get him. He's seen plenty brought in over the years with frostbite, chilblains, hypothermia. The cold doesn't discriminate. And there's little his scrubs, hoodie and pants will do against it.

He doesn't know what this is; if maybe he's— no. He's fine. He's okay.

He needs shelter. Warmth. He needs to get moving. He pulls his hoodie sleeves down, exhales hard as if to steady himself and looks to try and find a direction to head in. He's fine. He's okay. And there's smoke in the distance. Okay. So he starts walking, heading that way. His voice lifts, calling out into the woods. ]

Anyone out there?

two.

[ He busies himself with helping the old man out with any medical problems. It's something to keep him occupied, some renewed rush of adrenaline when he thought he's already long tapped out after the day's shift. When there's nothing for him left to do (which is in of itself, a strange notion) and the Feast draws to a noisy yet uneventful lull, the allows himself a breath and moves to some quiet, unoccupied corner out of the way of eyes and ears.

Rubbing his hands over his face, he groans and presses his forehead against the wall. It feels real, against his skin. Solid. It feels real. It isn't the first time today, but when he exhales — a strange sound escapes him. Laughter. Disbelief. Catching something sharp and rough like a sob. Fuck, maybe this is it. He's cracked. It's hit him again. No bodies in Pedes, no painted animals on the walls. Everything bubbling up from under the surface.

And he's laughing. ]

🩺 the thing with feathers

[ Something's wrong with the birds in this place. He'd seen the huddles of them around town when he's first arrived. Watching them all, as if they're all fish in a bowl. But nothing just stays that way, and soon enough — the birds start attacking. Attacking means injuries. Head injuries.

Robby takes a leaf out of Methuselah's book and sets up in the Community Hall. He's no use fighting birds, but he can pick up the pieces afterwards. There's comfort in routine. His smile is light-lipped, disarming. Genuine. A patient is still a patient, no matter the place. ]

Okay, let's get you sat down. [ Hands on, and insistent. But gentling guiding the other to sit down on the cot. His voice is easy-going, affable. ] I'm Doctor Robinavitch, people call me 'Doctor Robby' and we—

[ He drags out the 'we' then stops. He glances down at the supplies and sucks in a sharp breath. Not much. But he can make do. He's just amazed of the fact there's actually gloves left. But he keeps his tone light. ]

Are going to make the best with what we've got.

feast

[datgirl]

[ For Hannah, who has been lost in the wilderness with a bunch of teenagers for a few months now, this really is a feast. Hot food and drinks, none from questionable sources (she hopes), and so many people! And an actual settlement, sturdy shelters, and running water. It's a huge upgrade, though she still would rather have wrapped up her and Edwin's little research trip and gone right back home.

She floats through the room, aimless, not even really thinking much, just taking in the sensory input, savoring the taste of this coffee, delighting in that laughter--

No, not delighting. There are rough edges to that sound. Hannah approaches, peering around to where it's coming from, and sees the who and decides not to startle them. She knocks on the nearest wooden wall or surface, gently at first, then a little louder if need be. ]

Hey. Um... do you need a cup of coffee...?

kat mikaelsen | lost records: bloom & rage

[riotgrrrls]

( hello! please let me know if you'd prefer to avoid spoilers for lost records since it's a newer game. kat's permission/warnings post is here )

🐦‍⬛ arrival

Kat falls and falls and falls and falls and falls.

Kat is falling. Kat was falling. Kat has always been falling and will always be falling.

One minute standing and yelling and causing the biggest fucking scene any of those assholes in Velvet Cove had ever seen, bloody nose and all. The next, her vision swam and her knees buckled. She should hit the pavement

right

about

now.

But it never happens. Instead the world goes black and she thinks maybe I’m dead and that, it would seem, is that.

Until she wakes up. At first she thinks she’s at the cabin with the other girls, but it’s way too cold for that. It’s not the kind of cold you sometimes get on a summer night, where the forest cools after the sun goes down. It isn’t the kind of chill you get from a fever, either. This is real, genuine, you're-gonna-die-out-here cold.

Kat sits up on the bare wood floor and rubs her hands over her grimy face. She knows she must look like shit, smeared in blue makeup and eyeliner and a little bit of blood. She feels like shit, too. Imagine that.

“Fuck,” she says.

Something thunks in the next room. It sounds vaguely person-sized, whatever it is.

”Fuck,” she says again. Then, louder, “Hello?”

Please be Nora. Please be Autumn. Please be Swann.

🐦‍⬛ the feast

By the time she makes it to Methuselah’s feast, she’s chilled to the bone and pissed off and absolutely not in the mood for eating large quantities of food at a stranger’s house. The sight of it makes her stomach churn.

The whole setup feels kinda like a church thing, like something her mom would drag her to. Right about now someone ought to be reminding her to pray or telling her how lucky her family is to have a strong young man like Corey to help around the ranch. Gross.

As they famously said constantly in Kat's home year of 1995, the vibes is off.

So much so that when Kat spots a stranger about to dig in, she can't help but sidle up next to them.

“Dude…” Hushed but urgent with a dash of disbelief for flavor. “Don’t eat that.”

🐦‍⬛the ravens (cw animal injury/death)

She hears the smack of bird-meets-glass before she sees it. A small, black shape lays in the snow. Perfectly still. Drops of deep red encircle its head like a crown.

Kat drops to her knees in the snow and scoops the bird up. Its little broken body is light as a feather, like nothing in her hands, yet it feels so, so heavy.

"This keeps happening." It isn't the first bird she's seen fly into a window here. Something heavy settles in her chest, right next to her heart. It takes root and presses on her lungs and makes it hard to breathe and she has to swallow hard to push down the stupid lump in her throat. Her teeth clench so hard it hurts. "Why aren't we doing anything?"

The ravens belong here. The people don't. Why doesn't anyone care? Why doesn't anyone ever care?

A dark, feathery cloud begins to swarm menacingly overhead. Kat doesn't notice.

🐦‍⬛wildcard

( lmk if you'd like to do something else! )

Raven tiiiime

[lestercraft]

Arthur's been watching the birds whenever he leaves his house, trying to be mindful of the swarms to avoid getting scratched to pieces. Of all things, he doesn't want to lose an eye now.

So when he sees a young woman just crouching in the snow with the sky darkening overhead, he doesn't hesitate.

"Hey- hey-!" His crisp English accent cuts the air like a knife, and Kat will see a scraggly, bearded man in too many layers, half his visible face torn up across the right temple and cheek by a long-healed friction burn, rushing towards her. "Get up, you need to move!"

Three | The Murderbot Diaries

[unit003]

Arrival
Waking up here was troubling for a number of reasons. Three didn't remember going into shut down or doing a restart or even a recharge cycle, but here it was. The area was completely unfamiliar, it couldn't access any sort of feed and its sensors did not seem to be working correctly. Also, it was cold, which brought Three's attention to another malfunction. It couldn't raise it's body temperature, so then the best course of action was to find somewhere out of the elements.

With no (working) drones it has no idea where anything is, so Three just starts walking in the direction it 'woke up' facing. Is it going the right way? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe you'd like to help the poor confused dark haired, dark skinned person (man?) who was not at all dressed for this.


Feast 1
The food wasn't really appealing to Three, so once it manages to get to the community hall it heads straight for the fire. Part way there, however, it catches sight of something on a table and just stops. That should not be here.

It steps over to the table and picks up a red and brown (sci fi space) helmet with a sticker on it. Three stares down at it, unnaturally still. This should not be here. It should not be here. None of this makes sense, and its going to take a few minutes for it to even begin to process it all.


Feast 2
Later on, Three can be found helping to hand out food. It came over to investigate and after declining food someone asked it if it wanted to help. Sometimes Three still forgets that it doesn't have to follow commands from humans.

So its there, handing out bowls of stew and whatever to anyone coming by. Its not as eerily still but it is refusing to make eye contact with anyone.

arrival

[notarat]

Well, at least the 'not at all dressed for this' part of the other's appearance makes it very clear to Billy what's going on here. He was just gathering some firewood outside town when he happens to spot the other, staring at it for a moment. (Not because he's trying to figure out what's going on, but mostly because Billy is kind of hoping there's someone else around to help it..)

Doesn't seem like it though. And Billy isn't going to let someone walk around and freeze to death just because he didn't feel like being social in the moment. So after that moment Billy does approach Three.

He definitely looks way more like he belongs here - appropriately dressed for the cold and all.

"I imagine you don't know where you are," he starts.

Monoco | Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

[feetpictos]

Arrival

Gestrals don't really feel the cold. They don't really sleep, either, which makes the fact Monoco's woken up face-down in some random patch of snow in the middle of nowhere a little bit concerning.

He pushes himself to his feet, ignoring the way snow falls in piles out of his hair as he looks around, bouncing slightly to work some of the stiffness out of his limbs.

These trees aren't anything he's seen on the Continent. Maybe not even before the Fracture. And he's been across the whole damn place with Verso enough times to be confident in that. So either he's somewhere new, or...

Hell. He doesn't know. He hasn't even got any fucking legs on him. That's a far bigger problem.

So he's going to start walking. Following the lights and smoke in the distance, because if there's any people, they're probably going to be that way.

And anyone who sees him walking into the outskirts of Milton, following the lights and paths to the community hall, there's going to see over six feet of Gestral, with white shaggy fur across his head and shoulders like a yeti, but marionette-like jointed limbs wrapped in homemade armour and a kilt. And no face - just the painted mask.

Methuselah's Feast

He's not inclined to make smalltalk. He ignores all the food. The fire's a nice reprieve, but ultimately a distraction.

Because once he sees his weapon laid out on the table of other random supplies, he makes a beeline for it and picks it right away. And if someone happens to have picked it up first, he's going to grab it from them without any warning - not necessarily aggressively, but with the inexorable pull of someone who is not going to let go.

"That's mine."

A surprisingly deep, husky voice, but unmuffled and even-toned. That's not a threat - it's just fact.

The Things with Feathers

Monoco goes outside heedless of the birds. Which means that people might witness him being utterly swarmed by them, and yet he keeps moving like they're not even there.

It gives him an excuse to help other people. Kind of. Mostly that help involves yelling "Violence!" as he surges forward, swinging his bell like it's a warhammer and earning a muffled dong as crows get smacked out of the sky and into the ground or trees, and sometimes it takes a few swings but it clears the birds away completely. At least for a minute.

Occasionally, one of them gets tangled in his hair. And he continues to ignore the bird cawing madly as it tugs wildly around trying to free itself again.

[[OOC: I'm only in Act 3, so no end-game spoilers please! I'll be avoiding spoilers from Monoco also. :> Have fun with the violent monkey man!]]

Methuselah's Feast

[readytosee]

Darling had been lingering around, chatting with familiar faces. And besides, it's always good to stock up on food when possible, in this place, so the warm meal is a welcome thing. He'd been looking at the weapon, curious about the bell, when a hand shoots out and grabs it.

"Oh!" he jumps back a little, startled, and laughs nervously at the very firm declaration. "Sorry, I wasn't going to take it. I was just curious. But no, it's -- that's yours, for sure! I'm not much good with a weapon, anyway."