An Arctic Adventure -

"From my perspective, they appear to be tourists seeking to reach the North Pole." He didn't think the North Pole had even been touched by explorers yet, due to the staggering logistics of providing adequate supplies to explorers, not to mention navigating the inhospitable lands themselves and returning alive. But... he seemed to be in a time yet to come, so it might've been reached already. And for it to be a spot on a tour, for what looked like common folk...

"I, on the other hand came to study the Northern lands... especially those curious lights that dance about in the sky."

Their color grew brighter and stronger in impatience. What did these powers want?

Absentmindedly swinging the glaive over his shoulder, the strange man followed Guillory's look. "I do not think they desire anything," he said. "I sense no souls within them." Then he narrowed his eyes and examined more closely. "Then again," he said, "though they may not themselves have soul or will, their origin may not be accidental. I cannot say — this world is alien to me." Tapping his chin with his free hand, he considered further, then said, "or perhaps I am simply mistaken, and they do possess both soul and will, and I have simply failed to perceive it. Or it is obscured from my sight by conscious intention — there are some misguided mortals who use such capabilities."

He looked back to the gathered group and said, "can you tell me anything of your companions? You speak of them as though you merely encountered them as I did, but even so, you still have more experience than I with them."

edited 1st Jan '12 5:41:22 PM by KillerClowns

Sybil bent down and squinted at the 'jeejah'—such a silly name— wanting to help her new friend but having no inkling as to how, and not particularly wanting to stand around mourning the broken thing. That was a very boring thing to do.

She straightened herself and frowned, her gaze drifting from the electronic and weeping Quon to the very flat landscape. Something snagged her eye; it looked like a piece of the sky had torn and fallen to the earth. She backed surreptitiously away from the group and then broke into a sprint to get a better look at this mysterious object.

Getting closer revealed that this was in fact a person. He seemed absolutely celestial, and, judging by the crown, some kind of royalty too. Instead of yelling and waving like she usually did, she walked up to him, her head bowed humbly and her hands clasped in front of her. "Hello, sir. It's nice to meet you," she said reverently. "You remind me of the sky." There was also something unmistakably dreamlike about him...maybe he was one of Hypnos' thousands of sons. Or, gods, Hypnos himself. One of the ancient ones. Her head bowed even lower.

edited 1st Jan '12 9:16:47 PM by piearty

"My final assessment: this thing is a piece of junk." Friedrich shrugs and drops the thingy in the snow. "Maybe it sucked less before it got fried."

Now, who matters more, the kids, or what these people think of him?

The answer is painfully obvious. He turns and walks back to the outpost without uttering another word.

Might be using another character soon. I'm not sure.

A smile seemed to float to the strange man's lips, though it was hard to tell. Ah yes, this one understands, he thought, examining her. He returned the bow by banging the butt of his glaive upon the ground, and said, "my greetings to you." Noting her dress, he added, "you seem as ill-suited to this frost-consumed waste as I, though. For what purpose do you visit this wasteland, if it is not your home? The other," he glanced at Guillory, "described you and your group as 'tourists', but if that is so, you are a most strange sort of tourist."

edited 1st Jan '12 9:38:26 PM by KillerClowns

Paradox! This is Estela before she had Bianca, who Friedrich is currently looking for :P

Friedrich looks up, lets out a mutter of "Oh, shit," and scurries inside the outpost.

A small young lady in an elegant velvet dress swoops down from the sky. Flames dance around her entire body without burning anything until she crashes into the snow. She pops up, completely unharmed, and waltzes toward the strangely dressed couple. They seem far more interesting. She surveys them imperiously, straightening out her skirt and petticoats. Her black hair cascades freely down her back to her ankles.

"Interesting." She jumps and floats five feet above the ground with one leg over the other. "I could have sworn—"

She frowns at them and glances back at the larger group. "Anyone mind telling me what party I'm crashing?"

edited 1st Jan '12 9:42:42 PM by SnowyFoxes

The strange man blinked, and despite his efforts, genuine surprise flickered on his face. "That was an unusual entrance..." he reached out with his mind, seeking the Blessing, but did not find it. This was very strange, and another hint of surprise briefly revealed itself.

But this was irrelevant for the time being. Such apostates were not his present problem. "I cannot answer your questions, as I am a newcomer myself. These two," Guillory and Sybil, "seem agreeable, however, and perhaps now they will be so kind as to enlighten us both as to the meaning of this. But I can tell you this much: we are in the northern wastes of a planet called Earth, a place I had thought uninhabited. It would appear I was misinformed, however..."

edited 1st Jan '12 9:53:24 PM by KillerClowns

"Earth?"

She tilts her head to one side.

"This planet is named after a slightly fancier word for the ground?"

She lets out a haughty but ladylike laugh. "By all means, tell me more."

Looking back up, she replied to the man, "Well, I actually do live here. Well, not here-here. Canada. It's less flat, more tree-filled, but otherwise still the same. I, I guess I sort of am a tourist? I don't know how, or why I got here, in Greenland. Certainly didn't want to and leave my tree all abandoned. Some of the other people seem to have gotten here by accicident too, but most of them on purpose." She scrunched her face up. "I don't know why. It's really boring. Not like the rest of the globe, which is, yeah, pretty full of people." She paused. "If I may ask, sir, what purpose have you yourself traveled here for?"

A newcomer that was even newer than this newcomer appeared, crashing in with fire and now floating for some reason. Sybil wasn't sure if she mightn't be some sort of royalty also, but she didn't have that air that the man did. There were differences between haughty pomposity and the proud, confident air that gods and true royalty carried if they so chose..at least that's how she felt anyway. It was probably alright to act regular. "Hi there, nice to meet you! My names Sybil. There...isn't really any party to crash here, I mean...the arctic. Whatrya gonna do. And we don't all call this place Earth, I call her Gaia. I really like your dress, by the way."

edited 1st Jan '12 10:11:03 PM by piearty

The strange man raised an eyebrow and said, "I had always assumed the connection between those words was the opposite. But no matter. I can tell you only bits and pieces, as the squabbling tribes of this world are not of any concern to me. I gather their factories and thinking-machines are powerful, but they cling to their corrupt democracies as shipwrecked men to driftwood — with predictable results." He shook his head in pity, then said, "but the details are insignificant — the Earthly lords and their sandbox wars might as well be as far distant as the stars."

"No," he said, "this is a place of peace and cold, where mortals tread only rarely, and with good reason."

edited 1st Jan '12 10:11:02 PM by KillerClowns

"Oh! Thank you." She glances up at the lights in the sky. They remind her of what the Sky Bridges look like from the ground, but the bridges don't flicker and undulate like that. They'd be terrible bridges if that was the case. "I think I like the name Gaia better. I noticed that you referred to Gaia as if she were a person. Is this planet truly alive?"

There are few things she doesn't want to challenge, and a living planet would be one of them. She considers returning to the ground.

"I am Estela Rona, by the way." She makes sure the gold ring on her right hand is clearly visible as she combs her hair with her fingers, just in case her name and position mean anything to these people. None of them seem to be Vespers, though. There's no energy attracted to them.

Come to think of it, there doesn't seem to be any energy anywhere other than around Estela herself. The entire place is empty.

She realizes that she feels terribly alone.

edited 1st Jan '12 10:12:45 PM by SnowyFoxes

The strange man gave Estela only a cursory glance, and showed no awareness of her distress. He did notice her ring, however, and guessed it meant in her homeland, she was a person of some significance. The same could be said of the strange man himself, of course, but in these barren wastes, titles were utterly without value. Only power.

He said, "I had sensed no will within this world, but I can sense things are not as they should be... so I may be deceived in this claim." He reached out his mind again, feeling a vague static restraining his abilities. So... well, he had nothing.

"Ah," he said, "but it seems I owe you a name." Deciding to spare them the various titles he had acquired, he said simply, "I am Amu, and it is my pleasure to meet you all."

edited 1st Jan '12 10:27:17 PM by KillerClowns

"Of course," she replied with conviction, bending down and patting the ground as some sort of emphasis. "I met her...once. It was right as my stalk burst out of the ground. I gained consciousness and senses and before I saw the sky, I saw her. She waved to me." She stood back up. "Because my kind is of the earth, but still living, we get that little glimpse. I think the river nymphs see her all the time...hmph. Anyway, she's busy all the time, self-upkeep and stuff, so she's not the most active."

She ducked her head again as they said their names. "It's a pleasure to meet you as well, Amu. You too, Estella." So he's not any deity I know...or she, either. Her ring is pretty too, though.

...That is some sad irony.

Guillory watched the woman drop from the sky in mild bewilderment.

What was it with this place and sorcerers? He had dabbled in magicology before at the cost of his academic reputation and treaded into the forgotten lands of crazed sorcerers, dangerously mischievous fay, and a strange Parisian by the name of Flamel. The application of magic these beings here had demonstrated was far more extravagant, he supposed than the terrifying and malevolent applications he had seen in his studies thus far. Still, if his first (and last) brush with the fay was any indication...

He glanced at the woman and man dressed like the heavens. If they were going to be introducing themselves... "Professor Vincent Guillory. Pleasure." Lowering his hood, he gave them a polite bow.

Irony? Where? @___@

"A pleasure to meet you all." Estela nods her head to each of them in turn. "Are you a sort of, ah, plant spirit?" She had heard of magic users that found ways to give trees and flowers consciousness, but they were only the faintest of rumors. And giving them human-like bodies... simply amazing.

"Yes, I am," she said rather proudly. "I'm an oreiad, which is a pine tree dryad. Like I said, mine's back in Canada. There's a whole bunch of us, hehe. Trees aren't very hard to find, you know?"

Yeah, irony? I don't get it. Also bed.

edited 1st Jan '12 11:09:42 PM by piearty

"Intriguing," Amu said, considering Sybil thoughtfully. "I had thought such things as xau — as my people call such beings as yourself — to be only the dreams of the more superstitious and simple-minded of mortals. But the universe ever reveals more mysteries, even to one such as myself." He drummed his fingers along the handle of his glaive, turning to examine the Northern Lights once again. "I must have them," he said, absentmindedly. "Sybil, do you know anything of them?"

edited 2nd Jan '12 10:04:43 AM by KillerClowns