Event Log: Flu Season

[hadrielmods]

Who: All characters
What: The event log for the Flu Season event
Where: All over the city
When: March 20th-March 30th
Warnings: Gross sneezing, sick people, and paranoia

It starts with a cough, a sneeze, a sore throat - something small and simple, easily ignored. But then your symptoms get worse. It's probably been awhile since you've been sick, that sort of thing doesn't usually happen here. You might be able to raid the shops for some tissues and tea before it gets too bad, and hopefully you've got a friend to help out until you get better. Surely it'll be over soon, right?

Until the fever sets in, and you start to understand why your friend is really there. They don't want to take care of you. They want to make sure this is the last anyone will ever see of you. They want to learn all your secrets. They want to steal your most precious possession. You know they're plotting against you, you know they're keeping something from you. What will you do to find out what it is?

Then, as the sickness fades, you realize it was all in your mind. Let's hope you didn't do or say anything too awful. But that friend of yours... they seem to have picked up your cough. Maybe you should help them out?

► This log covers March 20th-March 30th.
► Feel free to make your own logs, as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If your paranoia ends in murder, please let us know here.

Comments

[crippled]

Ivar is, himself, out on Hadriel's streets mostly quiet streets because an hour or two ago he had loudly quit (for the third time) taking care of his two very sick roommates, and stormed out of their shared home. Or rather hobbled out, on his crutch and makeshift leg braces, eager to be literally anywhere else and dealing with anyone but his brother and the Christian king they seem to have accidentally decided to keep. He is, as it turns out, profoundly ill-suited to playing nursemaid—having spent all his life on (and resenting having to be on) the other side of the sickbed.

When he spots Curufin with a hand raised in greeting, he immediately recognizes him as a similar sort of otherworldly creature to the one whose knife he'd found, days ago. After only a moment's hesitation, which probably doesn't look like much considering how slow and halting his gait already is, he continues forward and closes the remaining distance between them.

"You, there. Who are you?" He's... not the most polite guy in the world.

[so_dark_a_road]

The crutch and the braces almost make Curufin wince -- not because he regards the man who relies on them as un-whole, but because it's such an incomplete solution to the problem of keeping this vital, energetic, and determined man upright and mobile. But makeshift or not, it is working.

Curufin's otherworldliness is less in his appearance than in the subtle but almost palpable aura he radiates, that of being made of the stuff of an earlier, brighter universe.

He isn't put off by Ivar's brusque manner. It reminds him of the etiquette of the mortals who lived in his territory in the First Age, the age of perpetual war.

"Curufin son of Fëanor," he replies. "And who are you?"

[crippled]

Aha! So he was right.

He does so enjoy being right. His wanderings have also given him enough time to burn off the worst of his nasty temper, so he's what might unfortunately pass for him as friendly when he comes to an unsteady stop and shrugs. "Ivar the Boneless." He has found that calling himself the son of Ragnar Lothbrok elicits precisely no reaction here, and he finds that disconcerting enough that he's stopped saying it. As long as he's been alive, his father has been the most famous man in the land, and the sudden change is... strange. He hasn't entirely decided how he feels about it yet.

"You are the smith?" Maglor had mentioned him by name when they were talking about his very fine knife, after all.

[so_dark_a_road]

Yes! Curufin is one of Maglor's younger brothers.

And he would understand that problem of being the son of a famous man. Fëanor was a warrior of unparalleled power, skill, and ferocity, and he was also the Leonardo di Vinci of the Elvish world -- a scientist, an artist, and a craftsman who invented practically everything the Elves used later on. The telescope, the palantir, the Elven script letters, and moreover he furthered the arts of metallurgy and gemcutting beyond even the skill of the gods. It was rather strange for Curufin when he left his own world and no one knew who his father was, let alone himself. But he got used to it.

"I'm a smith, yes. So is my son Celebrimbor, and he is here in Hadriel as well."

"And what is your vocation, Ivar?" For Ivar certainly looked like a man who had one, with those piercing eyes and that manner of utter determination.

[crippled]

"I found a knife you made," Ivar clarifies without Curufin having asked, if only so he can lead into: "It was made of metal I'd never even seen before." He'd tried asking Maglor about it, but he hadn't seemed to know enough about the specifics of Mithril to satisfy Ivar's curiosity. Ivar is certainly no smith himself, but he is more interested probably than most in the strength and sharpness of metals and the craftsmanship of weapons.

Speaking of which, he tilts his head at the question, surprise and interest flitting across his face in turns. Curufin is maybe the first person he's ever met to assume he could have a vocation, that he was doing something with himself outside of Being Crippled full time. Ivar's idle curiosity threatens to grow into something more, even just from that one small question.

"I am a Viking," he smiles, though probably that means as little to people here as being the son of Ragnar Lothbrok does. A raider, he means. Someone vicious and awful to bring glory to his own gods, not these strange ones in this place. "And I command a great army."

[so_dark_a_road]

"You did? I was hearing about objects from our own worlds turning up mysteriously in Hadriel, but I never looked for any. I was too busy at the time. Maybe it was a blade I had made for my brother? I used to experiment with metal alloys, trying to produce weapons that not only looked spectacular but could cut ferociously and would not break, no matter what." He is rather pleased that one of his brothers found it, whatever it was.

He catches that look of surprise and curiosity. Of course he does assume that Ivar has a life and ambitions and work of his own. How else could it be? Two minutes of knowing this son of Ragnar is enough to make that obvious.

"A Viking? A word that strikes the ears like the chime of steel." He grins. He doesn't know the language, but he is marvelously sensitive to the way sounds contribute to meaning. "You are a great leader, then. Tell me, what wars have you fought? What conquests have you sought?"

They have something in common, then.