Prepare for the #LodanRespawn2024 Existing characters may choose to be displace from/have memories of different timelines, thereby allowing returning members the option to retcon their whole character. These changes are the result of the "Unnatural Fog" plot device that is running between now and the Respawn. The plot is simple: no matter where your character is, that place is shrouded in a thick fog that suspends time, but not thoughts or memories, so even if they're repeating the same day over and over again, they continue to remember, so each time feels like a new day. For those retconning OCs; this is where new versions of themselves have the opportunity to replace the old versions. Official lore and tree updates will be announced asap
Post by Clairee Donya on Sept 22, 2023 19:18:33 GMT
Clairee pulled the goggles down over her eyes, and pushed the long tangled strands of her raven black hair back out of her face as stubbornly as her wings pushed the air beneath them in an attempt to break through the fog cover and see the world passed this mysterious phenomenon.
She was getting tired, cold, lightheaded and... wet.
The clouds were full of unshed rain and the dewiness of it was making her clammy. "How can there still be more?!" She huffed, her lunges and back starting to burn from the arduous task. She'd have to give up soon.
Clair eventually let herself drift back down to the world below, her feet barely touching the forest floor before her knees buckled and she slumped down to a kneeling position. From there she slouched gracelessly to the ground laying on her side. She heaved an exasperated sigh and rolled over onto her back. She didn't care if anyone saw her like this. She was just spent.
No matter how many times she tried, how many days she worked herself up, rested and ate well, she couldn't see the end of this mist.
It was like someone had cast a spell or something. Certainly wasn't me, she thought. At least the burden of responsibility for this didn't fall on her shoulders.
But the eeriness of it was starting to get to people. Even M.I. people, herself included.
Last Edit: Sept 22, 2023 19:19:23 GMT by Clairee Donya
Post by Elaine Anncroft on Sept 28, 2023 0:42:16 GMT
Navigating endless trees was already hard enough. She hadn't gotten good enough at her bearings here to be utterly full of confidence and the fog did everything *but* help. In the city you could blindfold her and spin her around and she'd still confidently be able to tell you exactly what direction she's facing. But swaths of trees and dense fog that you could probably cut with a knife made for ill traveling. Adding to the fact was how it dampens her curls and has her clothes sticking to her skin uncomfortably, like a half-drowned cat. All she wants is a warm fire in the library and somehow that's too much to ask for. Cas even seemed upset by the thick air and was trotting at her ankles with his ears half-flat and his tail down. She'd brought him along to show him to the guild so he could get used to it but hadn't expected the weather to remain so dismal. Elaine half felt like she should apologize to her poor pup.
She had just opened her mouth to promise him some extra treats and a warm bed later when he suddenly perks, his ears swiveling around then locking forward and he takes off. "Cas!" Elaine says as he vanished into the swirls of grey and she rushes to chase after him. She didn't need him getting her even more lost than she already was. "Cas, come back here!"
The hound halts at the shoes he finds connected to the body sprawled out on the ground with a wag of his tail as he sniffs them with intense interest.
Post by Clairee Donya on Sept 28, 2023 3:55:10 GMT
Clairee groaned and forced herself to lift her head enough to stare down at her foot. Sniffing at the muddied appendage was a dog. Decidedly non threatening. She let her head plop back down, then gave a louder groan at the sudden pain.
She sat upright and clutched the back of her head with a scowl. That's about when she realized the dog came with a person. "That your pet?" she asked the pup, nodding her head in Elaines direction. She gave her poor skull a few soothing rubs before dropping her hands to either side and leaning back on them in a slightly reclined sitting position.
"How'd'you do?" she asked, looking upward. Despite her exhaustion, she was genuinely glad to have company. Something about this weather made her feel uneasy left alone, like it could swallow her and transport her to a completely foreign place, removed from any that she knew or trusted.
Post by Elaine Anncroft on Sept 28, 2023 18:11:56 GMT
The dog, in his undeniably fluffy glory, has a seat near the girls feet and turns to wait for Elaine. The ander following his tracks with no shortage of mild annoyance for his little jaunt realizes there's another person in the woods with her and she slows her approach. Partially out of caution, you never run into anything willingly unless it is a desert shop. "Ello?" There were a few questions one would like to ask about the whole 'lying on the ground thing' but there was also the concern of appearing rude unintentionally. Elaine feels it best to answer accordingly and apologize for her rambunctious companion. "Yes, he's mine. I'm sorry if he's being a bother." She says whistling once to spur the large canine back to her heels where he sat to lean on her legs and look up expectantly. Elaine ran a hand down his head as she looks over the girl in front of her before a sudden spark of realization hit, "Wait, I know you don't I? We met when you bumped into Lasair and I at that pub! it's been forever ago now hasn't it?"
The brunette smiles brightly, feeling rather delighted to have bumped into someone here period. Let alone a face she's seen before! But she slips into an introduction with a tilt of her head and an appeasing clasp of her hands, "You'll have to forgive me, it's been long enough that I don't quite remember your name? I'm Elaine and this handsome fellow who's already made his acquaintance is Cas. Are you alright?"
Post by Clairee Donya on Sept 28, 2023 18:30:36 GMT
"He's no bother," she answered but the dog retreated anyway and heeled to its owners side. Clairee leaned forward again and shrugged her shouldres a few times, wiggling her wings by extension to try and take some of the stiffness out of them. After a loose and low energy shake she let them slump to the ground again.
At the spark of recognition Clairee looked up again and really gave the other woman a solid head to toe scan. "Now that you mention it, you do look familiar!" With some effort, Clar climbed back to her feet, groaning a little involuntarily as Elaine was excusing herself for having forgotten her name. To be fair, Clair didn't remember hers either so it was nice of her to offer it before she had to ask.
"I'm Clairee, nice to meet you again, Elaine. and Cas, hullo you sweet floofy floofer" she baby-talked the dog a bit. Having grown up on a farm, she was quite used to big dogs and no matter how large or old they got, they'd always be puppies to her.
"Oh, I'm alright. Just tired," she spoke to Elaine again, in her regular voice of course. "I keep trying to-" She stretched her arms up, stretching her torso too to keep it from cramping now that she'd caught her breath. "-break through this fog, but no matter how far I push, I can't seem to get out. It's like its just... everywhere. It's not natural." she said, happy to be sharing her thoughts out loud actually.
Last Edit: Sept 28, 2023 18:30:48 GMT by Clairee Donya
Post by Elaine Anncroft on Sept 28, 2023 19:02:58 GMT
Clairee! That certainly rang a distant bell for her but all the same she smiles when the woman baby-talks her sweet boy. Cas was a downright charmer to anyone other than Lasair and he knew it too, milked it for all it's worth as he wags his sweeper of a tail. But as the conversation turns to the fog at hand Elaine's expression turns into something a bit more cynical as she glances around the area. Endless grey as before still swirling about. "It certainly makes traveling next to impossible. I wonder what caused it? It's making everything damp and I've had trouble keeping a steady fire in my home for a few days." Elaine didn't mind making the complaint of her fireplace proving to be rather difficult, where was pyromancy when you really need it hm? "But I'm sure it will lift at some point. It can't linger around forever... right?"
Post by Clairee Donya on Sept 28, 2023 19:43:23 GMT
"Right..." Clair said, sounding not at all convinced. "So, you live out here?? In the forest? isn't that dangerous?" She asked the fellow guild member, not exactly sure if she was one. If she wasn't... Lasair should probably hear about the extra set of eyes squatting so close to their HQ. The dampness was irritating though, and Clair felt herself kind of eager now to get out of it. She'd like to head back to the MI building, but couldn't risk walking a stranger there. What a conundrum they were in now.
Post by Elaine Anncroft on Sept 28, 2023 20:08:04 GMT
"Absolutely not," Elaine laughs shaking her head as she raised her hands to fold them across her chest loosely. "I would be out of my mind to try and live out here in a place where I can't even tell my direction reliably. I live in the city." But she sensed the issue at hand with trying to establish who was meant to be out here and who wasn't. It was important to maintain secrets of the guilds. A lot rides on the faith in those within to keep details to themselves but for this particular moment the feline takes a little whim and runs with it. Shifting her weight from one side to the other she dropped a hand for Cas who bunts his muzzle into her palm as he shifts closer, his fur soaking up the mugginess of the air making it weigh down to his sides. "Considering you're out here on your own and it doesn't seem like you've crash landed or are otherwise put off by the forest itself, I am willing to step out on a limb and say that you're a member of MI?"
Common sense lead her to the belief that Clairee was another member coupled with the fact that Lasair already knows her too. It wasn't a foolproof conclusion yet but it was so close to being one without being said outright that she felt confident she's on the right track. The alternative was another ander milling about the woods on her own and that would be reported surely however, it seemed incredibly unlikely given the weather.
Post by Clairee Donya on Sept 28, 2023 23:22:38 GMT
Clair sighed with relief. "Yes, Thank you, because it's getting gross just sitting out here!" She grinned and nodded. "Should we head back in and warm up by the fireplace?" Then she bent down to talk to Cas. "Bet there are treats in the pantry if we look close enough. Truth be told, I could go for a hot mug of something myself," she added to Elaine. "Tea, Cocoa, Coffee, anything to get this dewiness out of my skin and from seeping into my bones." The mugginess out here was real.
Post by Elaine Anncroft on Sept 28, 2023 23:44:32 GMT
Pleased that she was correct, Elaine gives herself a small mental pat on the back and nods agreeably with her about the longing for a warm drink to spur the cold and damp away. She nudges Cas from his lean on her leg and he hops up to shake out spraying a bit of fine mist on the both of them much to his owners chagrin. "Cas-" she shot the mutt a flat look before shaking her head out and turning in what she thought was the direction of the guild. Offering up a friendly smile regardless, "Hopefully you have a better sense of direction than me out here in this drat weather. I have great senses in the city but once you get me past the trees I am pushing hopeless, and I don't like it one bit. The sooner we can fill a fireplace with logs the better."
Post by Clairee Donya on Sept 29, 2023 1:38:26 GMT
"The best" she boasted. Maybe not the actual best, but her sense of direction was pretty good, as someone who frequently got a birds eye view of the landscape."You're pretty close, just a little bit more in..." She used her hands to gently turn her guildmate, if Elaine would let her, ever slightly to the left. "that way," she concluded. It was more or less a direct line between where they stood and the mansion.
"We'll be back in no time, and sipping before a toasty fireplace." Clairee couldn't wait and picked up the pace with eagerness. Screw this weather, it could be tomorrows problem.
Post by Elaine Anncroft on Sept 29, 2023 3:07:11 GMT
Elaine let the winged Ander turn her in the right direction and she breathes a sigh of relief. At least she wasn't miles off of it but she smiles as she catches up to Clairee's pace and adds with genuine gratitude, "Thank you for steering me in the right direction. I'll start the fire if you'll find the kettle when we get there. We can probably find some spare blankets and what not around. If nothing's within arms reach I'll climb for it and steal something from one of the alcoves." Cas bounds around their feet happily keeping up with Clairee and occasionally bumping into her legs with a happy wag of his tail since it seems like they're going inside. Elaine notices and giggles, "Cas seems to like you quite a bit, he doesn't usually warm up to people this quickly. The only person I think I've seen him really take to is my mother. Well, and he likes Lasair well enough but they are more begrudging buddies if anything, it's rather amusing." She lifts a finger to her lips in a playful shush, "Don't go around telling him I've spoiled his potential stories regarding Cas, his renditions are sure to be more dramatic than mine."
Post by Clairee Donya on Sept 29, 2023 3:19:39 GMT
"I can help with anything hard to reach," She gave her wings a rustle, "winged ander, remember?" She smiled and folded her wings back so they wouldn't be a hazard to her companions. "I grew up on a farm with lots of herding dogs, and sometimes I feel like new dogs can just tell, you know?" She added conversationally. "Any stories you want to spoil about Lasair though, I'm all ears. I rarely see him, and feel like I miss out on more good stories than not. You'd be doing me a favor," She joked.
The tree cover broke up ahead and before them were the towering spires of the MI HQ. "Home sweet Second Home" She said with a content sigh. "Shall we?" She motioned for the door.
Last Edit: Sept 29, 2023 3:21:30 GMT by Clairee Donya
Post by Elaine Anncroft on Sept 29, 2023 4:12:58 GMT
"Feline myself," Elaine replies with a giddy delight at being able to admit it to someone without the actual fear of being shunned or worse. That ship had sailed. Growing up on a farm must be the a good chunk of the reason, as she has nothing else to base it off of, when it came to Cas. Mutt as he may be she's confident he'd excel in whatever environment she put him in, but by far her favorite was full sized pillow when he slept on the bed. He bounds ahead to wait at the door as the guild hall finally emerges from the fog much to Elaine's relief. "After you," She replies with a grin and a little bow before following Clairee inside.
Once in and out of the dismally dreary weather she takes in the now familiar smell of vanilla. Where does that even come from? She'll find out one day. "I've got the fire. There's a nice side room down by the library that is tucked in nice, it shouldn't take too long to warm it up. We can meet there after you've got tea and snacks, yeah? I'll share some stories about Lassy once we're settled." Elaine teases, the many times she and the red haired menace had been out left to their own devices almost rivaled the few stories she remembers of Zona. Bittersweet now as those were she disperses the thoughts of Z from her mind and stands readily to split up and reconvene with warm progress.
Post by Clairee Donya on Sept 29, 2023 16:58:20 GMT
"Love that plan, let's do it" Clairee agreed. Once inside she shook off the chill and made her way to the kitchen for her end of the bargain. Once she'd acquired two steaming tall mugs of apple cider, perfect for the season, and a handful of dog safe treats; she made her way to the appointed destination.
"Hope you like cider," she said upon entering the room, both hands full.
Shoutbox
Welcome to the Shoutbox - If You Have Discord, Ask to Join the Discord Server