spellbinders | catch-all open log!

catch-all open log!

Who: Anyone and everyone!
Where: On the beach, and various other places throughout the hub island
When: Day 80, and the next couple days after
Open/Closed: open log for hub shenanigans!

[This evening, someone has placed an old, rusted-over camp stove on the beach near the coven's row of huts--anyone examining it in detail will see that it's not operational at the moment, but that could potentially be changed, couldn't it? If someone was handy with mechanical things . . . .

Next to it is a crate (which, from the weight of it is empty) and pinned to that crate is a sheet of paper with a map on it, something like a much cruder, black-and-white version of this:

with the following key:

1 - crags. Contain snakes which may be poisonous. Watch out.
2 - ocean, going about one mile out from the coast.
3 - lagoon. Contains thick reeds (could be woven or shaped into tools) and frogs (edibility uncertain).
4 - abandoned campsite.
5 - orchard. Currently, trees are diseased and bare. Plant healer needed.
6 - abandoned house. A family used to live here, from the looks of it. Still contains some useful supplies.

And there should be a 7 north of base camp with the notation "graveyard. Graves unused." but the player forgot and is too lazy to go back and fix it right now. Observant individuals will note that the map looks like a more detailed version of one hanging on the door to a certain coven member's cabin, one that has a note on the bottom: "Have information? Ask for Jay."

Other than that, it's a quiet night on the hub island. We've been here for a couple days; maybe you're getting restless? Want to check out that ocean, or lagoon, or even those crags? Maybe just go door-to-door in the beach huts? Maybe you're sick of shrimp and looking for other things to eat . . . hopefully someone's got a fire going tonight, and thought to kill a boar . . . .

What are you doing tonight?]

((here or here for place descriptions))

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No? What were you doing, back in your world?

[He's genuinely curious about the answer--he likes knowing about people, and Geir more than qualifies as a person--but he's half-asking just to change the topic. Talking about the Legacy like this is depressing him.]

I wasn't really fighting. That was the humans. I was doing something else.

[Geir hesitates and considers, narrowing his eyes. finally he cautiously says:]

If I tell you, you have to promise not to put a bear skin on. I don't really feel like getting in fights today...

A . . . bear skin.

[Bemused--he's never heard the term, although he can guess from context.]

[Geir yawns, unimpressed by the request for clarification.]

One of the berserkers. Biting your shield and roaring into battle. That kind of thing.

I don't roar, as a general rule.

[Dry, sardonic. But he's really curious now, if Geir thinks what he was doing would provoke some sort of argument.]

I'll try not to pass judgment on your previous activities.

Sorry. Last time it came up, someone yelled at me. Geez...

[he huffs, remembering, and tilts his head on his front claws a bit to eye Jay appraisingly. finally he stretches his shoulders and wings out, refolding them in a shrug.]

I was supposed to sleep until the end of the world.

[He tilts his head, thoughtful. There's nothing about that that seems immediately objectionable, but--]

But you're awake now. So did your world end?

No. We're still figuring out whether to do it or not.

[Geir really can't beat around the bush.]

[He . . . tilts his head further . . . he's better at being calm about things than Tara-Fay is, anyway.]

Well.

What were the points in favor and against?

It's not like that -- not for me, anyway. It's what I exist to do, that's all.

[Geir's eyes shift away. of course, someone who told the story Jay just did would expect reasons, some kind of principled decision and followthrough. Geir doesn't have any of that. just the certainty in his bones that he's carried since he was a child: that he'd wake up, and Heimdallr would blow his horn.]

You could say it's what I am.

[Jay understands the idea of existing for one single purpose, a little, but this time it's Shirley he thinks of first--the Merines, prophesied savior of her people and destroyer of the hated Orerines. She turned that on its head. She's a better person than Jay is, if Jay is a person at all, but he knew that already.]

Are you? [He's not entirely sure whether it's him talking, or the Shirley he imagines.] You talked about making a choice.

Vern summoned me, so he's got a say.

[always.]

For me, I'm not-- sure it's a choice I can make.

Why not? [This is skating closer towards his own issues--he remembers that conversation about purpose now. But Geir is, to all appearances, a mythological creature, so that gives the issue a little bit of distance.] Will you be--compelled if you don't?

[Geir tilts his head, considering that.]

I'm not really sure. My dad, for sure, would be mad about it -- probably everyone else, too. I don't know how far the others would stick their noses into it, but Dad would definitely have the rights and grounds.

That's not what I mean, though. You just have to have it in you to do that.

[he glances at Jay again, eyes steady, not betraying a lot of emotion about it.]

When you said you'd fight the Radiant even if the Quiet Nerifes had wanted them to win, I told you I didn't know if I could have. That's what I'm talking about. You have to choose.

[He arches an eyebrow.]

Do you not think you have the will to go against what everyone else wants for you?

[Geir narrows his eyes right back.]

It's a matter of will, but it's not about what other people want. It's about what I am.

[The thing is, Jay knows very well the terrifying uncertainty of making your own choices for the first time, having nothing and no one to guide you, unsure if you're even capable of acting on your own in such a way. Of being more than what you've been told you are.

He's known it, and come out on the other side, if only temporarily, and he has to (has to, has to) believe that the answer is yes. Yes, he succeeded in being something like a person, even if Solon came and took all that away again. No, it wasn't pointless to try.

It should make him sympathetic to Geir, but he's the sort of person who, having come to a conclusion, doesn't like to admit to the uncertainty in it. So his reply is a bit snappish:]

I don't know what you are, or what you're capable of. But I do know that you'll never know, either, unless you try. And if you go in hiding behind the belief that you can't, you've already lost that battle.

[the ridges by Geir's face face flatten down at the not-very-hidden scorn in Jay's words. even if he knew Jay's history, it'd be tempting to say something like you're human, you're right that you don't know; without it, the contempt of the inferred assumption that he's hiding before even trying stings even more. who in the nine realms is Jay to question him?

his words come out in a growl.]

I just said that I don't know. I don't know if I can decide, and I don't know if I'd go against my name even if I could.

--Fine.

[Deep breath in, deep breath out. He can acknowledge that he doesn't ultimately know Geir's true nature--he doesn't know his own, even, whether he can change himself or everything he did was just deferring the inevitable--and once that concession has been made, he remembers that he doesn't actually want to make an enemy of Geir, which having a screaming argument seems like it would be likely to do.

Right. He is supposed to be cultivating allies in the coven. Right.]

I suppose what you do on your world is your own business, anyway.

[If it comes out a bit piqued, well. He isn't actually very good at being mature.]

Thanks for your permission!

[it's not exactly the most mature response to Jay's pique, either, but Geir is feeling rather slapped; he was trying to extend a measure of trust to Jay and discuss something that bothers him pretty much every minute he's awake and thinking about it, and he got what felt like an accusation of cowardice. he tells himself that he's not running from this; he's unsure about it, but he's trying to engage with it, even when it's scary. that's what he's trying to do by talking to Jay about it in the first place!

...his basic honesty forces him to admit that he is avoiding making a final decision on whether he thinks he can try or not, or whether he wants to. so there's enough truth there that it stings. but the stakes are so high, and Vern and his choices are always in the background. it's not wrong to try to think about it from as many angles as he can before he decides, it's just not.

those are all things to articulate to himself as words rather than a heated, hurt sense of injustice later, though, when he's not snapping back at a teenager.]

I already unmoored the fate of the nine realms and Ragnarok just to go think about it. What have you tried?

[What comes out is a short bitter laugh.]

This! Everything.

[everything he does, he means; every joke made, every connection forged, every time he pursues a question he has about Qri or this place or another member of the coven. Every incremental step towards putting himself in a situation where he can get answers about this mess they've found themselves in. Every moment of the last six years.

(Except that's not true, is it? Everything would mean defying Solon.)

He stands there in front of Geir, looking both anguished and angry, color high on his face. Slowly it dawns on him that he's said more than he meant to, and he--freezes, his eyes and mouth caught in something like alarm. He shuts his mouth, carefully. Straightens his shoulders, not looking Geir in the eye, and attempts to walk off in the direction opposite him.]

[Geir knows what distress looks like in a human, and seeing it effectively chills the coals of his own grievance. it's not that he's no longer reacting... but for all his protestation about being the death of the world, as callous as he can be when deliberately inflicting damage, it's just not in Geir's basic personality to want to hurt people by accident. Jay was hurt by his retort, the way he was hurt by Jay's dismissal. Geir was trying to protect himself and his injured pride and fear, not inflict the same wound on Jay in turn.

that he doesn't understand Jay's reaction and didn't expect it isn't in and of itself unexpected. he's lost track of the number of times he's had a fraught conversation with Vern that started with Vern getting upset at something Geir didn't understand. this is just the first time it's happened with someone else.

awareness of the situation comes to him in the blink of an eye, quicker than it would take to consciously think it out... and ultimately, Geir's instinctive first reaction is to try to figure out what's going on and fix it.

Jay can get a good few steps in if he hurries. nonetheless, Geir's bulk shadows the sun a moment later as he makes a quick, winged hop. he lands lightly on his feet ahead and to one side of Jay, blocking him off.]

What's that supposed to mean?

[Geir's head is low to the ground to look at Jay's face and his voice is half angry, half puzzled. he's not just reacting any more, but the confrontation isn't over.]

[You are JAY THE UNSEEN. You are currently standing outside your HUT on the BEACH. Exits to the WEST, NORTHWEST, and NORTHEAST are currently being blocked by a LARGE DRAGON.

The LARGE DRAGON would like to know more about the VAGUE ALLUSIONS you just made to your EXTREMELY TRAUMATIC BACKSTORY. What do you do?

~~tell the truth~~ ERROR: TRUTH MODULE NOT FOUND.
lie your face off
> ineptly attempt to deflect the question

You straighten your SHOULDERS, refuse to look the dragon in the EYE, and say tonelessly:]

I really don't think that's any of your business. Let me leave.

[> show an emotion to aid in this attempt to get the dragon to let you leave

You cannot SHOW AN EMOTION because EMOTIONS are a PEOPLE thing for PEOPLE. You are not a PERSON, although you do a PRETTY GOOD IMITATION of one, if you do say so yourself. Most of the time, anyway.

You are not a PERSON, and you do not SHOW AN EMOTION. You just stand there instead.]

[Geir huffs out a breath in surprise at the emotionless words and downcast eyes. it's certainly a change from how wound up Jay had been from his normal businesslike self only a moment ago.

he's not an unperceptive creature, nor is he blind to his own behavior, and he needs to physically blink his eyes and shift to resettle himself when the knowledge suddenly hits him: Jay is trying to detach himself emotionally from the situation. it's something he's aware that he does, in the dim unanalyzed way that one is instinctively aware of one's own emotional processes; he did it the other day, in the exact confrontation that he was referring to when he asked Jay not to get in a fight with him. seeing it in someone else is strange: a futile attempt to get away from something painful and scary inside your own head.]

all of that adds up to a tone that's much softer when he speaks next, almost gentle.]

Okay.

[it is Geir's business, if Jay means to use it as a place of authority from which to throw painful accusations at him. but it doesn't seem worth getting into that right now.]

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But I--

[but he what? but, he should have kept his temper? he had a right to get angry in that situation. shouldn't have talked about it? Jay asked, and Geir isn't sure he regrets it yet.

no. better to just be awkwardly honest.]

But, I didn't mean to hurt you.

Sorry.

[he shifts aside a little; Jay will have to walk close to him to keep going, but he can continue his escape and leave if he wants.]

Edited 2017-10-02 23:39 (UTC)

[Yeah, he's leaving, silently.

Gonna go brood in the forest about how he's not a person and other fun things.]

(no subject)

rootandbranch - 2017-10-03 00:10 (UTC) - Expand

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