downswing: (十四)
[personal profile] downswing


( Two men and a xenomorph walk into a tavern —

...alternatively, stumble down a woodland road, breath staggered, seemingly drained — if not by the weight of the enormous forest creature they carry, bled and bound to a makeshift pallet of decayed logs, then by the constant, jittery effort to evade the strikes of its tail.

The Doctor drags the animal’s wooden bed by long, loosely woven strips of ripped cloth. Lan Wangji holds the pendant with one hand and his own cutting strings that fetter the beast with the other.

For their trouble, the creature’s tail lovingly smacks the Doctor on his flank, then thwaps Lan Wangji’s temple, on the swing back. It growls its thanks after, before settling into a... disturbing... purr... that seems to indicate the time to nap is nigh.

The Doctor, then: )
It's settling down a bit already! Just needed a proper looking after, really, like anything.

( Well said, Doctor. For your effort, have a nice, friendly, sleepy tail smack on the back. So Wangji doesn’t feel jealous, the snoring beast peers over his shoulder, drenching it in a sea of... drool. He sighs. )

We bear one of the Beastmaster’s creatures. Feral, wounded. Enemy of the Huntress in the woods.

( Who should have been long culled, but don’t let Lan Wangji’s long-suffering expression convince you of that. The enemy or their enemy, so on. )

It requires... healing to resume duties. We number those who know the care of animals?


( ooc: ...sorry, cave buddies, just going to park Fido in the back real quick! Any veterinarians in the house? )

lanclan: (47)
[personal profile] lanclan
[ The scene is one of steam and muffled, echoing male voices from elsewhere, tiles covering walls. Xichen's face is in shot, hair unbound and soaked where it falls down his bare shoulders, pink from the hot water (no fear, he has a thin robe shrugged off but tied about his waist out of shot) where he is leaning over the edge of the bath. ]

This is rather unorthodox, in many ways, as first meetings go. Pardon my appearance, robes are somewhat contradictory to my surroundings. [ But he's out of seclusion, in a strange realm, and this is the only way he knows to prove the bathhouse is safe: by using it. ] Some of you already know my younger brother, Lan Wangji. You may call me Lan Xichen.

[ He sighs, nasal and soft. More of an exhale. His smile hitches back up. ]

I now live above the bathhouse. Technically, [ here he glances over blandly to a pair of guffawing sailors in the background, lips pursing as he holds back his real opinion, ] this is a private residence, but it would be rude to deny access to those who wish to use the downstairs, so I would like to invite over anyone who wishes to bathe in something other than cold lake-water — if my housemates wouldn't mind, I should like to meet all of you, too.

There is a separate area for women, of course. Please use the rinsing stations before entering the main baths and wear something discreet, for the sake of others.

[ Xichen glances around as someone calls his name and there is a momentary wider shot of him soaked to the waist as he straightens to nod in answer, raking back his hair so it isn't stuck to his chest you're welcome. He looks again to the video and smiles warmly, tilting his head in apology for the break in his attention. ]

It is seemingly busier in the afternoons.
reparo: (evanesco)
[personal profile] reparo
[ -- and the camera starts transmitting, as someone pulls away from being very near Hermione. The talisman does not pick up the features of that person, at first, but what it does pick up is Hermione's faintly dazed murmur or:]

A-are you truly a witch?

[There is a brief pause, from the person - woman, you can see it's a woman (Miang-Si, if you've already met her) - in front of Hermione, before she darts forward again, darkening the view completely.

Before the trasmission cuts, from bodies pressing together too tightly, there is one audible clue: the sound of lips meeting lips in a surprisingly thorough kiss.]


- L A T E R -

[OH LOOK AT THAT, IT'S HERMIONE'S FACE. She looks a little more dishevelled than usual, a bit surprised.]

Th - [Clears her throat.] Did this thing turn on? [The indignity. Her first kiss in as long as she's been here, witnessed by the whole network. (Her first kiss with a girl, too! A woman even.) Earth swallow her up.

No, this is fine. She's going to grit her teeth and smile tensely.]


Right, so - on the bright side, I don't think Quangze suspects that I am one of her accomplices? The rest of the inhabitants still think I'm a writer of books on manners - there's something to be written about shoving your tongue in someone's mouth uninvited - regardless. I'm not - I've never met her before just now.

So, in light of that... Please all do me the favour of not mentioning to anyone that I am a you-know-what.

[ooc: Please consider this backdated to Miang-Si's parade on the 25th.]
weifinder: (wtff | inside of me)
[personal profile] weifinder
( The recording shows a small toad, black and red and gold, sitting in the palm of one hand. In another hand a brilliant emerald green toad is held, pointed in the direction of the smaller toad.

The smaller toad shifts to look "toward" the display, lifting up on front legs to address the one recording by pendant.
)

I don't want to kiss the toad, Lan Zhan! Hnnngh.

( The toad, who spoke in Wei Wuxian's voice, shifts his legs and tiny bulk back around to stare down the larger toad. Who inflates its throat and offers a long, wheezing croak. )

Ugh. Fine. For the sake of proving this works before anyone else suffers through this —

( He abruptly leaps forward, smashing his small toad face into the larger toad's face. How does one kiss a toad when one has no notably amount of lip? Both Wei Toadxian's front feet plaster against the larger toad's face, attempting to keep the other toad respectable. Holding the awkward position for excruciating seconds. He falls backward, kicking off the other toad, to flop back into Lan Wangji's open palm. )

Was that long enough? I don't —

( Abruptly the image shakes with a yelp of Wei Wuxian's surprise as the screen is filled with pale flesh, mud, and the sudden forward falling scramble of a man who has now found himself with a palm filled with the weight of an adult human male. Welcome to the darkness, shifting, squelching sounds of mud and an irate toad expressing its displeasure even as Lan Wangji's equally excruciatingly dry voice ends the video with a: )

... efficient.
3point0: (92)
[personal profile] 3point0
Okay so here's the deal, I ran into one of the staff members emptying the trash from carriage 48 and a whole mess of dream boxes fell out. I mean like, a lot, both the last two days.

Don't know if that's what we smuggled them all in for, but they'd all been used. And the guy was spooked. Apparently the bigger ones cause attacks to the train or whole trains to be pulled into the dream or for the user to be able to pull parts of the dream into reality.

But here's the thing, he also said that a small-scale user could take the box and rewrite parts of reality with it. Pretty cool, right? How many boxes do you think there were? 'Cause we might be here awhile.

Oh, and he also said that you can always tell when something's a living dream, because they don't sleep. No matter how hard a thief tries to get them to. Sounds kinda awful.

Wait wait, before I go, Nynaeve wants me to ask if anyone's heard anything about the herbs or the tools going missing? 'Cause we don't know when those disappeared, right?
pathologise: (pic#16408724)
[personal profile] pathologise
time loops
shapeshifting
walking dead
dragons
death at every route

that's the bullshit everyone thinks is the first thing you should know
not 'hi, sorry you're stuck here like the rest of us'
"at least there's alcohol" isn't a comfort
getting caught by magic is an absolute way to die so we're fucked
if the beacons just break why are we trying to find them?
why are they apparently believable?
we're helping the people that kidnapped us
has anyone said no? because i don't want to help them and fall into more magic and death


( she is very drunk and not at all coping with everything she's been told since getting on the train )
weifinder: (quiet | this pull is astronomical)
[personal profile] weifinder
( Lo, here sits Wei Wuxian, very tired, but smiling as if he's not and managing (through the use of present soft, kind lighting) to not look anywhere near as tired as he is. He's sitting on a couch, leaning back, and dressed rather dapper, as far as his buttoned up vest indicates; his robes are in need of mending. Please bear with the weird (to him) puffy sleeves and tight sort waistcoat. )

Hello! I'm called Wei Wuxian, summoned like you, ah? Don't ask me how long. Years? Years... ( He sighs. It's pointedly theatrical in delivery, with a small shake of his head. ) As Karsa, delightful woman, has likely told you already, the way home for us lies in the gateways of this world being activated and powered long enough for us to get through. They do work. They just don't run for very long.

( He smiles, waving at the "view" finder, where his pendant sits as he records. )

These summonings across worlds have happened the last two years. The man who smooths our way east refers to himself as the Merchant; he's one of the few left living from the citadel of Ellethia. Mark the name, because they're the source of the cursed dead plaguing this world over the last decades.

We started in the citadel of Sa-Hareth, then traveled east to Taravast. From there we sailed through the remains of Ellethia. After, we arrived at Ke-Waihu village. We sailed on to Serthica, then cut across the deserts to Alem. If you're here now, that's where we just left.

( Now he holds up his hands, waggling his fingers. )

Time to talk about the undead warlords? I'll make an effort to remember their names. ( a pause. ) I'll remember most of them, and the rest of us will have to help, ah?

( He'll now count them off on his fingers. )

Unhalad, dead. The Beastmaster, dead. The Huntress, supposedly broken away from the Brotherhood. The Child, son of the Beastmaster that his wife, the Huntress, willingly sacrificed. Matthias kept the Child's survival and changed state secret from his parents. He persists. ( A wave of his hand, and he's back to counting: ) Ratkeikaku, Rathingku, Rat... the clawing one of war, left behind in Alem. Those are the named Brotherhood. Then there's Anurr, native to Sa-Hareth. Older than all the Brotherhood.

Matthias has been mentioned twice, and I'll say now he was the lead behind the project in Ellethia that led to the deathless that plague this world. He made himself known to young miss Kamala recently, though we've indirectly crossed his path before. I don't know what to properly call him, but he has control over the dead. He's a lord of the deathless.

( He claps his hands together, leaning forward a touch. Canting his head and smiling, but lacing his fingers together until his chin can rest atop them. )

I'll end with a listing of our other allies. Zenobius of impaired memory and survivor of Ellethia's disastrous research, Quicksilver Sam, former pirate captain who'd been influenced by... that was the tongue, wasn't it? Oh, there's body parts in our mysterious eastward journey, but don't worry about those quite yet. The witch Hatisse is I believe still beholden to Wrath, one of our number. She's very old, very wily. Take care. The last of our allies is an ancient scholar, but he does and doesn't always wish to be disturbed, so be kind to Asgeirr, ah? He's a gently spirited fellow.

( He's also a ghost, which is specifically what he isn't sharing. His jests are hilarious, he knows. He smiles broader, staring at the pendant through which anyone watching this will feel as if he's staring through to meet their gaze. )

I welcome questions. I welcome everyone else to offer answers. My memory, as some will say, isn't the most trustworthy thing.

( ooc: please use this as a information sharing post and threadjack away, wei wuxian will not be able to answer everything alone, nor does he want to! )

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Mar. 27th, 2021 06:18 pm

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