spellbinders | [WORLD TWO

Who: All coven members
Where: In and around the new world’s apartment building where the coven is staying
When: Day (the calendar isn’t syncing for me hELP)
Open/Closed: Open to All

You’re in a room. It’s pretty bright — blindingly so, even. There’s something very stark and very clean about the place, and also the person you’re sitting in front of. You’re sitting? You’re sitting. There’s also a pane of very powerful plexiglass separating you from the uniform-clad person who is now speaking to you.

It’s impossible to transcribe what they say verbatim, but here’s the gist of it:

- You’re being welcomed to a city called Shehui. Depending on who you are, the level of technology may be light years ahead of you or child’s play.
- There’s a very strict policy about magic. While there are measures put in place to prevent magic from happening, this is still something that they reiterate over and over. They don’t want to take chances.
- Crime is also frowned upon. Small infractions will result in credit deductions, while major crimes will get you banned. Antisocial behavior is also looked down upon. You’re locked in the city for your initial eight weeks. You can leave afterwards, but trying to break out of the city or cause social unrest will result in monitoring and a potential ban.
- This city is supposed to be somewhat relaxing. Is it a free pleasure cruise? No. Is it a self-contained society that runs on community and indulgence? Yes.
- You’re being given an allotment of credits in order to stay in the city, which is what the economy there runs on. This goes on for quite some time.
- You’re being moved to a housing location. Despite the slotted speaker in the middle of the plexiglass, the only time you have a chance to ask questions is when a small slit opens in the bottom and a package is slid towards you.
- What’s in the package? There’s a credit card-like apparatus that has apparently taken a picture of you. It contains a place to write your name, an identification number and barcode. It also has a thin strip near the top that has scrolling script floating by. It states “WELCOME TO SHEHUI. YOUR ID WILL UPDATE WITH COMMUNITY NOTICES AND PERSONAL PINGS FOR JOBS AND VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES RELATED TO YOUR INTEREST.” It’s a lot to take in, but that’s the long and short of it.

Have questions? The person will reiterate a few times that there are information desks around the city. That’s all for now…now you’ll be traveling to your next destination: your new home.

The floor slowly lowers as if you’ve been in an elevator the whole time. It connects to several other glass containers, much like your own, all suddenly clanking together in a chain. After a short wait, the chain begins to move — quickly. Faster, maybe, than you’ve ever gone before. It’s hard to even make out the scenery when you’re zipping past everything so quickly.

Where does this trip lead you? The ground floor of your new apartment building. The plexiglass cases open up and you’re in a hotel lobby. There’s a flashing board on the wall — NEW ARRIVALS, COME HERE.

The apartment building is locked up tight for three hours in order to let new arrivals get their bearings. After that, the ground floor lobby doors open into the city of Shehui. There’s a lot to take in, but let’s cover the biggest bases:

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ There is an aftertaste he cannot taste.

Not when McGillis meets his eyes, and he knows better than to think it, but cannot help but feel it inevitable. As much necessitated as demanded by what sparks and expands in the divide. Safer if ire, if the flint strikes for that, for cognizance at least of McGillis's awareness of his effort. If only that, less certain of McGillis's purpose. Not knowing, but feeling, and if actions were simpler on the beach, Shehui firms those sands.

Before he can divert enough attention to the taste, to prepare a responsive answer, McGillis dips. His hand shifts enough for his thumb to drag, light but firm, over the silk paper of inner wrist. A heart beats there, but he cannot discern the thrumming from his own. Enough for that, but not to loosen, and as Gaelio had not lifted from this position, their faces are so close that McGillis's next challenge is one he nearly cannot see, out of focus from proximity.

Nearly, but just right, keeping the details as crisp as the sound of shell and fruit pierced. For less than half a second, fractional, his eyes have widened, just enough to rim white. Gold breezes against his nose, too close for focus, for anything but a blur, like squinting toward the sky adjacent to sun.

When judgment comes, it adjusts his eyes, though the movement knocked them from McGillis's eyes, to his mouth, and they have yet to raise. Chocolate there, too, spotting his lip, as Gaelio can feel on his own. Though his own aren't curved so cheshire. ]

That might be it.

[ Sour, the taste, only just. ]

What will you do? If it's the whole batch, can you sell a substandard product?

[ This close, his voice has hushed, and it's a strange effect when otherwise keeping stern and casual, as though having only the mildest interest in the bakery's treatment of imperfect berries.

It isn't pretending, except that it is, it's far enough that it is, they're far enough. But nothing these last two years has felt as real, as concrete -- or, is it, that in this moment, such is the effect. Substance blotted out. A different, bitter and copper aftertaste, washed out. As unforgivable as it is irresistible. But, not inexplicable.

Much the same for the conscious shift of his other arm. It should be reluctant, it should be as inexplicable as he tells himself it is, or should tell himself, questioning his own purpose rather than fraying with old, painfully familiar anxiety for McGillis's, his eyes fixed high, or as now, fixed low.

Keeping hold of McGillis's wrist, his other arm navigates his hand, his thumb, to draw over the spot on McGillis's lip. It does not linger, but neither does it rush in its retreat and pivot, finding his own parted lips, his dabbed out tongue, which catches the chocolate left on his own mouth. ]

The chocolate might save it.

[ It's good enough, sweet enough, dark enough. His tongue traces his lip, absent or intended, it must be one, but in the haze of the moment, the line between too blurs. Teeth follow, catching, and it's as Gaelio's eyelids are sinking over blackened eyes, that his face begins to tilt, absent or intended -- only it must be the former, because their noses bump, and his fingers twitch around McGillis's wrist, and he jolts.

Letting go, jerking upright, and stabilizing himself once more against the glass casing, He'd cross his arms if it wasn't so obvious, but glances away, toward the door.

It isn't only his neck that's hot, now. Warmth spread. ]

What do I --

[ Clearing his throat. ]

What do I owe you?

~~[ just your average bakery customer sampling/purchasing a chocolate strawberry nbd ]~~

Edited (fuckingdhfjhgkfdss) 2018-07-05 08:24 (UTC)

[ That little bit of stroking under the wrist makes McGillis conscious of his pulse. Collected on the outside, fluttering at a quicker, more nervous pace on the inside. It winds him back to that night they met in the rain and spoke the unspeakable to each other. After they had wound down, side by side, drying off on the same cramped mattress.

Due to his reminiscing, due to that touch, after chewing and swallowing his bite, he's prompted to clip a sigh. Feeling it against his skin in the present moment, he can solidify the memory he began to think was not real, but imagined. There was a touch like this that night. After he'd dozed off -- but he hadn't quite done that, and then not at all.

He hears Gaelio's voice before he lifts his head. As he wonders how any of this can possibly be real, that far-away note in the tone delivered to him keeps him riding on the same surreal wavelength.

What will you do?

His lips are not so curved in another moment, his eyes glazing over as he fixes on a point near the hem of Gaelio's shirt. Another touch jolts him from that reverie; a brand new one. Inexplicaly warm, Gaelio places his thumb to McGillis's lip and swipes at the remaining chocolate residue.

What was fluttering inwardly cracks through the shell, birthed out in the open in the surprise that lights through his eyes, which lift just enough to confirm the source (as if there will be someone else there in front of him when he looks, as if he could blink at any moment and find himself waking from some elaborate dream). McGillis is able to sense his semi-wide eyed staring, but isn't able to stop himself, now with the new fixed point Gaelio's tongue pressed to his own mouth, tracing slowly over his own lip.

For this, he must lift his head a little. The intent must be --

At this distance, their noses brush. A twitch from Gaelio's hold on his wrist and then he spooks quite suddenly, breaking all contact and shuffling back into his original position.

The disappointment leaves McGillis a bit dumbfounded. With Gaelio looking away, he takes a moment to pass his tongue over that tingling spot on his lip, lapping at the last remnants of chocolate that weren't caught by his thumb. A ridiculous urge sweeps through him -- to lean over the counter and take him by the collar, but --

What next?

Gaelio clears his throat, suggests payment.

Payment?

With blushing cheeks, with his gaze averted. McGillis can feel it once more -- the smile creeping back onto his face, only with a twitch at the corner. Rather than give in to that urge, he could take this opening and do something else quite bold with it. After all, Gaelio matched his offer and upped the ante at each turn.

Only... ]

For one-half of a substandard product? You will have to pay dearly.

[ Cheeky. ~~A little bit flirty~~. Despite the cheek, that fluttering feeling returns as he gathers up the nerve (that he would even have to, for something like this), such that he's left holding the stub of an eaten chocolate strawberry for a moment too long.

Into the bin it goes. McGillis leans back onto the counter, crossing his resting arms in front of him. Tamping down the nervous excitement in his eyes proves to be difficult. He has the distinct sense that some of that energy is present in them. That they're in another world doesn't change the fact that all of their encounters have been difficult to pin down and define. All he knows is that with each passing day, with each exchanged mental ping, the urge to test boundaries grows a little stronger.

And each time he's expected Gaelio to react poorly to those tests, his predictions have been a bit off. ]

I request permission to steal one of your upcoming night shifts in return for my generosity today.

[ As even as he keeps his voice, the hand underneath his elbow shifts, his shoulders and arms shifting with it. ]

[WORLD TWO | INTRO LOG]

(ง’̀-‘́)ง

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