hadriel_logs | Intro Log: Don't Wake Tonberry

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Intro Log: Don't Wake Tonberry

Who: New arrivals and everyone else!
What: The intro log for September
Where: The colosseum and all around the city.
When: September 10th-13th
Warnings: Cute monsters, a way to pass the time, and plenty of newbies!

Waking up in Hadriel certainly has its down sides, but if this weird murdercave city is good at one thing, it's keeping people entertained. As you awaken on the hard ground of the colosseum, you might see a rectangular cardboard box lying near you. Ignore it for now, as you get your bearings, but if you get bored? Well, you'll find these exciting and unique board games will keep you entertained!

But how could you possibly get bored, when there are plenty of cute monsters around to keep you company? Sharing the colosseum with all the new arrivals are Tonberries. In addition to their natural cuteness defense, they also carry very large knives. They're slow-moving and look innocent and even friendly, but be careful - one strike from that knife and you'll be a bloody mess. They won't attack unless you get too close, but who doesn't want to hug a Tonberry? And of course, if you attack, they'll counter with extreme prejudice.

Managed to resist the urge to hug a Tonberry? Safely escaped from the clutches of the colosseum, new board game in tow? Awesome! Feel free to go explore the rest of the city! Find a house, find a new monster, or simply scavenge for supplies. Good luck, and enjoy your stay in Hadriel!

► This log covers September 10th-13th.
► Feel free to make your own logs as well!
► All characters arrive with phones that have network communication.
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!

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"I've been here awhile." He guides Flick through the streets, eyes sharp and wary as he watches for creatures that might have escaped the colosseum already. The city is as run down as ever but it seems their way is clear, and soon they're passing the apartment spires and crossing to the houses -- strangely built little things, rounded and curved in ways humans probably never would have built. Pell aims for one in particular, one with lights on inside emitting an oddly comforting warm glow. "I live here now, I suppose," he tells Flick enigmatically, letting go to open the door and usher him inside. The housing is usually safe.

Once they're in he turns to hug Flick, wrapping both arms around him gratefully. "It really is so good to see you. I've waited for someone I know, anyone, but for it to be you is..." Unexpected. Wonderful. Almost perfect, really, though he worries about Flick in this environment. Hell, he worries for himself.

Flick narrowed his eyes, watching as Pell guided him through the alien streets, eyes darting from side to side as he took in the sights, and turned back to make sure nothing was following them. When Pell ushered him inside the, well, he couldn't quite call it a house could he? Flick wrapped his arms around the other har, enjoying the feel of of Pell's warm body.

Which brought him to his next puzzle. Pell wasn't dead. He also didn't look like he had been plucked up and made Tigron, despite the rampant rumors going around. Maybe Cal had imagined it all? Maybe somewhere in his broken mind he constructed a fantasy of Pell's death. Had Pell walked out on Cal? No, that couldn't be it. He had seen Pell's spirit that night, he was sure of it. But dead people didn't just get new bodies. It didn't make sense.

Flick pulled back from the hug, looking at his friend with a wary gaze. "Pell. You're not dead."

The smile on Pell's lips fades away, and he shakes his head. His voice is quiet when he speaks again. "I'm fairly certain I am, back home. But like I said, Hope has the power of resurrection. One of the gods here. My best guess is that just spirits can come through the door as well."

He's tried not to think about it too much, honestly. What might happen when he leaves this place. What will become of him. Is there an afterlife outside of Hadriel? He couldn't say. "I remember dying, in any case. You don't just take a bullet to the head and get back up." Not even here. It isn't so simple.

"That's what I thought too. But," Flick sighed, trying to get all the thoughts rumbling around in his head out. There were too many and all jumbled around, and suddenly nothing made sense anymore. "Pell, there are rumors going around about you. Back home. They say you're Tigron, some kind of king or leader--I'm not sure. No one comes back from the dead, Pell. Cal was hysterical, he burned your body. But Seel says he saw you, Aru he was trying to take me to you. And Seel's not likely to make something like that up."

It was almost easier to just show him. Flick leaned in to share breath, and show Pell what had happened over the past few years. He tried to edit, there were things Flick didn't want to talk about, didn't want Pell to know. That Pell didn't need to know. Cal, Orien, Wraxilan.

"Tigron." He rolls the word around on his tongue, then shakes his head. He's never heard it before. He wonders what he could possibly be the king of, when he's still got so much to learn... and then Flick mentions Cal and Pell's eyes drift to the floor. That was his biggest concern about dying. Cal. His reaction to it. At least he wasn't dead as well.

Pell lifts his head to respond, to say he doesn't know anything, but Flick is leaning in to share breath and that's so much easier than simple words so Pell moves to meet him, a hand coming up to settle on the back of Flick's neck as they kiss. Things are missing. The images are jumping around a bit, like Flick has things he wants to hide. Pell wants to dig them out but he doesn't -- this is his best friend's head he's in. He just takes the knowledge as it comes and all of it is new and foreign and confusing. In his own memory, a set of knowing eyes rise to the surface. He breaks the kiss with a gasp.

"Thiede."

Flick noticed Pell's reaction about Cal. How could he not. It was Cal. He got under everyone's skin, yanked and pulled until there was nothing left of you. He didn't want that to happen to Pell. But....Flick was biased. Very, very biased.

He let himself lean against his friend, Pell was warm and familiar, unlike everything else about this place. Flick knew he was curious, and he didn't want to intentionally hide things from him but, well, there were things Flick didn't want to deal with. Wraxialin mostly. And things he didn't want Pell to know, to get hurt. How dangerous Cal was.

And then Pellaz broke the kiss, and said the name no one wanted to utter. Bad things happened when hara said that name. "Yeah. Thiede." He looked around, as if expecting the red haired apparition to appear behind them. "Are we safe?"

Pell loops an arm around Flick, hoping it would be comforting for both of them despite his next words. "No, we're not." It's just the truth. "One way or another... I doubt he can reach us here, but this place isn't safe in general. The monsters you arrived with were tamer than usual, and things go wrong here all the time in other ways."

He sighs, then shakes off the memory of those eyes and forces a smile, pulling away just enough to see Flick's face. He doesn't ask about Cal. He doesn't ask about the things Flick didn't show him, the gaps he could sense. He just tilts his head to the rest of the house. "We have an empty room. Let me show it to you, you might feel better if you're nesting." The smile turns more genuine -- he can picture Flick fixing the place up.

Flick continued to let himself lean on Pell, a complete change to how things were before. Before, Flick had been Pell's guide, friend, confidant, there when the new world became to much to deal with. Now Pell was in that role, and Flick was certain he did not like this new place he had found himself in. And no amount of nesting was going to change that.

But maybe, with his friend here, it wouldn't be so bad. He looked around at the alien looking construction of his new home. "....why does it always seem we're taking over someone's place in the world?" Flick asked, but he could already see things that needed help, fixing up. Creating a home. He could do that. Maybe this time bad things wouldn't happen. Saltrock. The white house from Pell's past.When things got comfortable, homey, the universe reached out to shake things up.

There's a short corridor off the living area in either direction; Pell takes the left one, towards the empty room. It's got a bed and some odd furniture, but it's recognizable as a desk, a bureau, a dresser. The window has no dressing, and he leads Flick to sit on the bed with him and gaze out it at the other homes, most of them lit up. Their joined hands rest in the dip where their legs are touching, because Pell isn't willing to give Flick any distance just yet.

"At least here the inhabitants of this place either died off or found a way out long before we got here. There's no violence among each other, only the creatures. We're working together to make this place liveable until the gods can get us out." Because people have stopped trying to find a way out. The tunnels off the main cave are simply too dangerous, and no one's managed to find anything resembling an exit. "I'll introduce you to my friends," he continues, squeezing Flick's hand. "Maybe I can teach you to heal. You can be useful here."

While Flick wouldn't choose to be here, he was enjoying the company. Back in Megalithica, who knew when he'd see Pell again. Maybe in an hour or two if Seel succeeded in dragging him to Immanion, with a bow and a gift card wrapped around his neck. Or maybe it would take 30 years for them to see each other again. But now, they were together.

He sat on the bed with his friend, fingers entwining with the other, just as unwilling to let go as Pell was. The other hand traced patterns over Pell's leg, moving up and down not willing to be separated.

"So everyone's in it together? A little bit like Saltrock just trying to make a place for yourself and survive?" But Flick paused when Pell mentioned the gods.

"I'd like to learn. I didn't have much of a chance at Saltrock." He looked down, before looking back up and deciding to just ask, before he lost his nerve.
"Gods?"

"A lot like it, actually, though our obstacles are different."

Pell struggles to focus on the conversation, not the fact that he's being touched in such a way that no one but Axton really has since he got here. It's distracting.

"I'll teach you all I know. It might be difficult without the texts but I've found practical application to be a much easier way to learn anyway. And yes, gods. Though they're not what you might expect. Just people with great power over the place, and us, though they're not unkind."

He shifts his weight towards Flick, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and offering one to his friend.

Not like the Dehara then. Flick let the subject drop, not willing to bring it up yet. He'd had ten years to work through what happened in Wraxilan's tent, when Aruhani betrayed him, and yet it wasn't enough time. He took a cigarette gratefully, bringing it to his mouth and looking for a light.

"It's been a long time for you, hasn't it?" Flick said, breathing in the smoke. It wasn't like he didn't know the signs. He hadn't had real aruna for over a year before the grissecon with Ulaume. Even Lormy, who Flick considered just as sensual as Pellaz, had tried to silence that part of him for a time. Looking after a harling with no one else for support no doubt made it easier. Still, Flick wondered exactly how Pell had kept himself grounded here. It was one thing to be alone and without aruna while bringing up a harling or embarking on his own vision quest. Trying to survive in such a stressful atmosphere was another.

He might not have been ready to talk to Pellaz about the Dehara, but that didn't mean he couldn't be there for his friend.

He doesn't need a light... Pell holds a tiny flame in the palm of his hand up for Flick to use, then lights his own.

"...it has. I've been alone, but I haven't fallen ill yet. Small blessings. Axton helps, he lets me share his bed and breath and we cant take aruna but it's something. It's closeness."

Flick needed to stop being surprised by Pell's abilities and remember that his training continued after he left Saltrock. Not that Flick's didn't as well, but they had different abilities to show for it now.

"You definitely have to show me how you did that." He opened his arms, offering to gather Pell close against him. "I never thought there'd be somehar else who tried to make it work with a human. No, it's not aruna, but it's better than nothing"

"...somehar else..? You?" He tilts his head as he leans against his friend, curious.

"I left Saltrock. Why isn't important. I met someone, he was all alone and we worked together for a year. Itzama helped me work through some things."

Flick's eyes shifted. Sorry Pell, he wasn't trying to intentionally deceive you, but the past was so hard to talk about.

"You left Saltrock? What about Seel..?" It must be important. He catches Flick's hand as it strokes his leg and looks up with worried eyes.

Edited 2016-10-17 01:35 (UTC)

"Seel and I....it wasn't working." Flick looked down as Pell caught his eyes, and he forced himself to take a breath and look at his friend. Still, there was a bitterness in his voice. "I can't believe I stayed with him for so long, Pell. I was so stupid. He didn't care. All he wanted was some har to fix his house, feed him and occassionally roon. Besides, it's not like he actually tried to stop me from leaving. "

"Oh, Flick." How could he have been so stupid? He'd thought, back then, that Flick simply liked doing those things but that there was more to their relationship. Not quite chesna, perhaps, but... something more than a slave. "I'm sorry."

He runs his hand down his friend's face, savoring the smoothness and warmth. "He's an idiot. I never had much love for him."

The thing was, Flick did enjoy those things. He enjoyed working, fixing things up and making a place a home, transforming simple ingredients into something mouthwatering. But he expected.....well, feelings. And then Flick almost laughed.

"Really? I hear you two become good friends. Or at least have a working relationship." Enough that he'd kidnap me for you.

"...I don't know what you've heard of me, or what I've done, or if the person they tell you of is even me. I'm me. Right here."

"I don't know who that person is either Pell. But Seel says it's you. He said he'd seen you. He was trying to bring me to see you. If it is you, I'm not sure I like who you've become Pell. You didn't even keep in touch. Friends keep in touch."

Flick stopped, realizing how bitter and horrible that sounded.

"I'm sorry." He tried to change the subject, or turn it back to Seel. "Right before I ended up here I was talking to Seel actually. He was so insistent I see you he had some of his guards escort me to a guest room and lock the door."

Pell waves a hand, dismissing the tone. "Friends don't usually die and come back to life either. I have a feeling I'm a puppet, not me at all, just a toy Thiede wants around to play with. Surely he could fix a bullet."

I'm sorry you've been through what you have.

"I never wanted that for you Pell. I'm sorry."

Too bad Flick hadn't yet realized that his strings were to be pulled by someone similar. Thiede had a sister and in escaping from Thiede he had walked right into her board.

" No one deserves to be a puppet. I wish your life was your own."

"Hmm. Who wouldn't wish such a thing? Likely, most people believe it because it's true for them."

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saltrock_imp - 2016-10-17 14:04 (UTC) - Expand

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