[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]

[It's funny, the things humans can get used to.

For those born after the first apocalypse, Aragami and the ruins of the old world are simply a fact of life -- it's the relics of pre-apocalyptic life that seem strange, and the lack of Aragami even stranger out here with the coven. Growing up in a world still rebuilding its culture, its flora, its fauna -- everything -- means that being thrown out here is overwhelming in a way being thrown into Fenrir wasn't.

He's getting a little used to it, though; at the same time, he doesn't know if he wants to.

For now, he's still getting used to talking to someone invisible. It's harder to know how his questions are received when he has only sound to go by, but more importantly:]

Wait... How old are you?

[He'd looked about his age, but...]

[oneandmikleonly]

[he'd twiddle his thumbs if that wouldn't look silly to everyone who could see him; this is a mildly sensitive subject]

Well--eighteen, or thereabouts.

[he's not sure if his birthdate is his actual birthdate, so it's a little bit of an approximation.]

Why...?

[probablynoteren]

Oh.

[So, not actually that much older than him -- he's not sure if he's surprised about that or not! He's still wrapping his head around all these different types of beings that he suddenly finds himself working with; for someone who's used to vanilla humans versus definitely not vanilla monsters as far as the eye can see... it's something.]

I just wondered... if seraph have a different aging system? Or something.

[Like, kids actually being a thousand years old or something. He's not as much of a TV junkie as his BFF, but he's absorbed some things.]

[oneandmikleonly]

We, uh...

[scratches his head, looking a little sheepish, and then broadcasts a succession of images to him through telepathy: these are his friends...]

Well, for context, all those people I just showed you are at least a few centuries older than I am. Lailah mentioned -- we age and change only as much as we want to, so you really can't tell physically; you have to ask. And, well, not all seraphs are humanoid, so that complicates that further.

[probablynoteren]

[..... He has extremely unique friends!! And actually, Lenka recognizes that first girl, though he only met her briefly over the mirrors so it's debatable whether that counts as much of a meeting. That probably explains why she could do such funny things with the mirror magic... The mirror telepathy? Whatever that is.

Wait, she's a few centuries old?! He's heard of well-preserved but-- that's a little. Well, if they're all seraphs. Still. This is messing with his brain a little!]

... They all look about your age. Or a little older. The first one, I thought she was only a little older than me. [he's shaking his head, it's a reflex after sorting through telepathic messages more than anything but it's also disbelief] What do you mean you age when you want to?

[Would people (er, seraphs) choose to age? Are there any actual old-man-or-woman seraphs??]

[oneandmikleonly]

Our -- physical reality is tied to our desires in some ways, is how it was explained to me. Like, I think I could stay like this, this shape, this form, for as long as I absolutely wanted to. I've wanted to grow at a human's pace, so I have grown, but if I truly wanted to stop and look like this for the next several years, I could stop. I've never thought about stopping much, growing older's been more appealing to me for a number of reasons -- but I'm sure I'll think more about the choice in future.

[the chair rocks under him in preparation to move, and he clutches at it almost in protest, looking a bit distraught]

[probablynoteren]

Hmmm.

[That's the strangest thing, something he's never really thought about -- that any being, seraph or not, could control what they were simply by wishing it. It really is a whole other world out there; and he's not sure what he thinks of it, besides that he'd like to understand it more... but it looks like they're out of time for that right now.

Lenka, too, gives his chair a vaguely offended look, because he was more or less enjoying the conversation. Of course, he can't see Mikleo's expressions, but he can see the chair juddering on the other side of the table.]

I hope it's almost over. [it's a quiet mutter to himself before he turns back to Mikleo] Tell me more about seraphs next time. Okay?

[oneandmikleonly]

[smiles at him, a little wryly; he can hear it, perhaps, even if he can't see it]

I will. Hopefully it'll be somewhere a little less rushed.

[and off they go.]