[WORLD ONE] SPEED DATING EXTRAVAGANZA

[spellbindmods]

Who: Participating coven members
Where: The Palai marketplace
When: Day 49
Open/Closed: OTA

[ Any and all who are in the marketplace will find that there is suddenly a mysterious barrier around the marketplace (that may be eerily familiar to some) -- specifically one large portion of the marketplace with a large number of tables and chairs, perhaps purposefully set out for nefarious reasons.

A few Palai are ushering coven members to chairs, and everything seems about normal. As normal as the Palai can be when they're putting on a show anyway. It's not until a sizable portion of the coven members are seated (and also supplied with breadsticks and small shrimp), that things get a bit more bizarre.

Thanks to the power of the Eltos, a small band of energy keeps coven members stuck to the chair (magic can interfere, of course), but that's not the end of it. On each table, next to those delicious smelling breadsticks and shrimp, is a bowl of scraps of papers. Every five minutes, a strip of paper will pop out from the bowl.

If you ask the Palai, they'll be inclined to explain speed dating to you. Asking questions, getting to know a person, then being shimmied off to the next potential mate -- this is made possible by Elto magic yet again, through flying chairs that transport their holder to a new table at standard intervals.

The Palai are extremely invested in this exercise? Will you let them down? ]

[ OOC: In the spirit of speed dating, each character will have a top level. All who want to respond to this top level can with questions from this post, but the threads have to end at 10 comments from each character. After this last tag, the characters can be assumed to have been whisked to a different potential match. You're free to have characters make up their own questions, interact with Palai serving food, etc. ]

Comments

[probablynoteren]

[Whoa, he went an entire stuttering few minutes without using any words he didn't recognize, he's gotta be real flustered--

Anyway, it's a little hard to make sense of Jake's flailing, but it's not like Lenka can blame him -- the Palai are so bad at giving up or interpreting continuous human mortification he's just thanking everything that's holy there's no merch involved. If there was merch involved he might have had to resort to drastic measures.

But let's not think about that. First:]

Uh... I don't get it, but -- we just have to do this so they'll let us go? [his tone is almost preternaturally calm; even if it looks like they're not being let go without a round robin of some kind and why are there so many coven members] We can talk about something else.

[What's a topic other than war, food or flailing, though.]

[potentite]

[Lenka is a lifesaber. Jake relaxes, embarrassed by his own reactions but just glad they can move past though.]

Well, um! What's your home like?

[probablynoteren]

[This isn't ideal for him at all either; but it does help that he'd already steeled himself to consider this something else they need to do while they're living here -- the price of hospitality, so to speak, and he's gotten used to swallowing things like that. At the end of the day... they're just talking.

So, yeah, they can do this!

Lenka thinks about that for a moment. The last time he described his home to someone, they didn't believe him, did they?]

Hmm. It's 2071, and we live in Japan. What used to be Japan. I work for Fenrir as one of their God Eaters. [there, that should be a good overview without getting into anything too confusing (no it's not)] You?

[potentite]

Whoa, God Eaters sound really impressive! [Though now he has to make his world sound better than it is.] Uh, I was... from the Pacific Ocean? An island out yonder there. But, uh, Earth sort of kicked the bucket, I guess, and we were trying to fix that, kind of? So... not much home at the moment. Oh and it was 2009 but uhm, also 400 years later was still a valid year since Dirk and Roxy were living there.

[probablynoteren]

They're... I always wanted to be one.

[It's a strange realization, that if he says God Eaters really are impressive he'd be including himself -- it still doesn't feel quite like a real thing, none of it does. Life's been in the fast lane for the past year or so.

And really Jake doesn't have to reach far to sound impressive or novel. Lenka's life has had some very strange omissions and even stranger non-omissions.]

Our world ended, too. 20 years ago, I think. [he's never known the world as it was, so] I've never really been on the ocean. What was it like?

[He'll digest the 400 years thing, Jake's home sounds pretty confusing too.]

[potentite]

[Well, it sucks that his world ended, too, but they sound like they're doing better than theirs if they at least have some organization, so that's nice.]

Oh, gosh, it's... When you look out from the shore, it's nothing but blue, far as the eye can see. It all sort of blurs together, the sky and the ocean, down by the horizon. It's... so vast! Like, golly, just... eternal feeling. Like you could get lost in it. It's wild but pretty. Oh and when a storm rolls in, you can see the rain coming in sheets and see the ocean churning.

[probablynoteren]

[Better in some ways, worse in others. Someone is far too creative with their apocalypses, eh?

Lenka listens quietly, eyes bright -- he's lived close by the water before, but there's still nothing quite like the thought of being surrounded by ocean in every direction. Regardless of the danger of storms, flooding, boars(?), islands are to him the promise of safety. Aegis.]

... You miss it?

[Perhaps a strange question, missing the end of the world. They have so much more than they'll ever need here (case in point). But still.]

[potentite]

[It might be strange to others but Jake understands.]

Mm, sometimes, yes. It was... a lot simpler, I guess? You know, entertain myself a bit, gather food, fix up some clean water for the day. Honestly the routine of survival was kind of... soothing in a way? God, that sounds so queer but surviving monsters was easier than trying to navigate human relationships. And I guess... it was a lot less pressure, too. Um, what about you, though?

[probablynoteren]

It was simpler. This is a lot more complicated, with the magic and... everything.

[Mostly the magic, and the fact that the Palai just keep bringing up new surprises -- good or not, he's going with it because they're not malicious but some days... He understood how the Aragami worked, how he was suppose to deal with them, how to do his best by his teammates. It already took a lot of work to get there.

Now he has to start from scratch, for some reason. He's still not sure he can accept that part.]

And I'm responsible for my Unit, at home. [the biggest rub] Qri should tell us how long she wants us.

[potentite]

Oh, wow, so you're some sort of leader? Like, a big wig type in the God Eaters?

[Because that sounds like an interesting thing to be! Especially if he was so excited to join up with them.]

[probablynoteren]

[He looks a little embarrassed about it, and there's a minor hesitation before he replies.]

... Yes, but they just promoted me recently. To captain. It's not really... There's never enough God Eaters.

[Because of the genetic requirements. Because they die too fast. Aside from that, there's a lot more complicated things involved in that particular promotion, made exponentially more confusing by his time here and what he's learned from Julius.

He'll leave it at shortstaffing, though.]

[potentite]

[Jake understands complicated situations putting you into a position of power.]

Ah, I see. What are the God Eaters a anyhow? A sort of military group?

[probablynoteren]

Military, yes. We fight the monsters that appeared after the end of the world. Aragami. [he's a lot more sure of himself with that part, tone calm but firm and focused; it shifts a little more thoughtful once he looks back at Jake again] I don't think they've appeared anywhere else. In other... worlds, I mean.

[Else there'd be a lot more apocalypses ongoing.]

[potentite]

Goodness gracious I hope not! [Because apocalypses suck. He's been through one.] I haven't heard of them from anyone else. I know our apocalypse was unrelated to that.

[probablynoteren]

There's two of us God Eaters here. If you meet Julius Visconti.

[Might as well pre-empt more confusion when it comes to the two of them and their attempts to relate their worldview to everyone else. And everything here. That aside, though...]

What caused yours?

[Go figure that world traveling would come with multiple apocalyptic stories. It's almost comforting, though, to know there are others thinking along the same lines.]