[EVENT] A NEW WORLD ORDER

[ironwood]

Characters: ALL!
Date: December 8, 2015 (with some starters for the following weeks)
Location: Keeliai, the Midnight Hotel, others
Situation: The Foreigners have awakened.
Warnings/Rating: Add warnings as needed.

They've been in the Dreaming for so long that when they wake up their bodies feel more like automatons, alien and ill-fitting. They haven’t atrophied, thanks to Milyn, but they’re stiff and a little bedsore, and the solidity of the Life Plane is jarring. Here, the surroundings don’t move on a whim. Here the world is more stable, almost harsh and unyielding in spite of the homey surrounds.

It’s been a year, says the clock on the mantle and on the second floor. Says Milyn, too, when she’s able to stop hugging them long enough to speak.

Nothing much has changed in the Midnight Hotel. There are dishes out of place, objects belonging to either Milyn or Eva in evidence, the diorama exactly where it had been but now brightly-painted thanks to Milyn's boredom. Milyn and Eva took a room each, in the time the Foreigners were sleeping, though neither used them much.

Eva’s upstairs, Milyn will tell anyone who asks. In her room.

Eva hasn't left that room in three days. She hasn't spoken in three days, either, or walked, or moved, or breathed. Her effects are neatly arranged around her bed, and the sheet has been pulled up. There is heavy incense in the room and Milyn has managed to preserve the body enough to remove the risk of too much mess (and other things). In a way, that makes it worse: as though Eva is sleeping. It’s difficult to tell whether Milyn is in denial or whether spending three days with no one to talk to other than sleeping Foreigners and a corpse has had its influence.

---

LINKS
Dreaming log | Foreigner's Awakening (Hotel) | Milyn’s Relief | Exploring Keeliai | Old & New Faces (Canon Updates/New Arrivals) | OOC: State of the Shell

Comments

AWAKENING (MIDNIGHT HOTEL)

[ironwood]

The Foreigners awaken one by one, sprawled and curled and buried in pillows and blankets and sheets -- more, the observant will notice, than they’d fallen asleep upon. It’s a slow process, first groggy and then painful due to stiff limbs and the intense feeling of being in the wrong body, or perhaps the wrong world. The common-room in which they’d slept is a melee of rumpled bedclothes, like the world’s longest and largest slumber-party.

One of the first things they’ll notice as they recover is that each Foreigner is wearing a small piece of unfamiliar jewelry. It will be either a necklace, ring, or bracelet and is embedded with a small crystal shard that seems similar to the shards of the Vilii Stone that was shattered to help defeat Malicant. However, the light coming from them is gentle and warm, and though their settings are crafted of metal, they're not cold to the touch.

"Eva undid the spell on the lanterns," Milyn will explain. "As part of her attempts to bring you home again. It didn't work, but these have replaced them. You need to keep them on your person, to stay connected to this world."

They’ll be hungry. It’s been a year since they’ve eaten, after all. There won’t be much in the way of food left in the kitchen -- not enough for a full meal for all of them -- but enough to slake their hunger until the Hotel can be returned to the city’s surface. The showers will need a little more in the way of a timetable before everyone’s had their use of them, but at least the plumbing is in working condition.

((OOC: This section is for the initial awakening and the movements within the Midnight Hotel as the Foreigners regain their bearings.))

Re: AWAKENING (MIDNIGHT HOTEL)

[gathersnomoss]

Zelgadis is used to the feeling of being in the wrong body -- between his own attempts to cure himself and Malicant's meddling, he has to examine a hand to see what species he is.

"Someone should start some coffee or something," he said. It was slowly dawning on him that he's hungry and cranky and feels like he overslept and that his limbs cramped up.

[royalguard_style]

Dante woke up to find things too strange to be true. He could feel Yin's connection to him return, but only barely. He thought about calling out to her, only to have his attention torn.

Wait, how long has it been? Why is his hair long again? And his beard, for that matter? And what the hell happened to the hotel?

Anyone else would have bolted upright after being this overwhelmed. Anyone else would want to make up for lost time. Anyone else would have wanted to figure out just what happened. But not this someone. This someone has been running around far more then he wanted to for months, and now he's expected to get right back up and watch this mess unfold? Screw that.

So yeah, he's going back to sleep. He can figure this out in the morning. Or next year. What's the difference?

Re: AWAKENING (MIDNIGHT HOTEL)

[solo_patria]

Enjolras had spoken to Sokka in the Dreaming, so he knew that he was all right, but he'd had no way, while he was out, however long that he was out, to contact Taraja. As he's waking, before his eyes even fully open, he's reaching for the hatchling with his mind, seeking, apologetic that he'd been away, even though he suspects at first that it was not for a very long time.

That is, until the ache in his muscles starts to settle in, around the time that he notes her presence, and that he has to really stretch to find it, more than he has had to stretch during any of his time with her on the island. The immediacy of her presence is gone, along with...Oh dear God his legs hurt just as much as they did every night when he was in his teens. The only way they do that now, and only sometimes are the times that he sleeps like the dead. Of course, given the powerful headache flooding over him, perhaps the drug is responsible for causing some sort of a hangover effect. At least the pain is dull enough that Enjolras is able to ease himself upright, and when he glances around the room, he finds that he is blinking hard.

Among his fellow Dreamers, he notes some growth of the hair of a few of them, for one thing, and speaking of matters of that sort, his own hair feels heavier than usual, having both long ago escaped its braid, and having grown out quite a bit past his shoulders. Surely none of that could have happened in the day or two that he suspects he was asleep. Groaning as he tries to untangle his legs from a nest of blankets that he's become trapped in, rather like one of Combeferre's moths and their coocoons, he does take a deep breath, and finds himself smiling as he remembers that last moment with Malicant, and the feeling that he'd won, that all of them had done so, rushes over him all at once. The fear of being left at someone's mercy has now started to fade away, and he can be content with that, confused as he is in the moment.

And that is when he notices something rather heavy on a cord around his neck. Blinking, he reaches for the pendant, turning it over in his hand, and studying the stone inside which seems, well, QUITE familiar, although it takes Milyn's explanation for him to slowly nod, though honestly, he is not catching most of this, his mind racing, given everything else floating around here.

Really, the best thing he can do is pull himself up to his feet rather slowly, groaning as he does so, and almost falling on his face, given he hasn't braced himself for it very much. As he stumbles, he groans loudly, though a moment later, he has to laugh at himself. Apparently, some things never change. As to the world around him though? He'll admit to curiosity about that first hand.

OTA

[redlightgreenlight]

The first thing Valdis felt upon awakening was confusion. The world no longer shifted. It was stationary and solid, the edges were sharper, more defined, more colorful, and yet harsh and painful to look at. Gone were the mists and sense of weightlessness. Her limbs were heavy, seemingly from lack of use, her throat dry and her senses dulled.

Something stirred within her essence and it took her a moment to recognize that it was the souls she held, they too were waking from their stasis. A few moments later the heaviness in her limbs faded, her senses sharpened and her head began to clear. She sat up, perhaps a little too quickly, because the world began to spin, but it quickly settled as her sense of balance returned.

Milyn's voice cut through her confusion and Valdis became aware of the necklace around her neck. She supposed that it was suiting to have her soul bound to a wolf pendant.

She looked around, keeping her movements slow as her regenerative powers worked to restore her body to order. She didn't yet have the strength to stand. It was similar to coming back from death, but without the pain and she knew that the recovery would be faster. The first thing she noticed was the smell and she immediately tried to shut off all sense to her nose, which of course didn't work. She covered her nose, opting to breathe through her mouth in order to dull the offensive scent. As she continued her analysis, she knew that they had been asleep far longer than intended, because all the men had beards.

Normally the passage of time wouldn't have bothered her, but a lot could have changed in a year and she had slept through it all.

OTA

[onethirdthesoul]

Hungry and achy, Ryou sat up as his head spun to take in the scene before him. "That was a weird dream...," he mumbled, rubbing his eyes as he let out a tired yawn. Those slight movements caused a jingling down by his chest, just clear enough to have him look down to see a familiar Ring. Bakura's Ring.

"Hm...?" It took a moment to really sink in what it was, as Ryou slowly panned over the room to see if Bakura was around. "That's weird..." Looking again, he had a new bracelet to match.

Weird, but he was too groggy and hungry to really think into it. His first order of business was raiding what he could of the kitchen and then, with a complete disregard for manners that was likely surprising for some, just sitting on the floor as he chomped down on scraps...and drank right out of the carton of juice.

[akito]

It's hard to wake up.

Not because everything feels wrong, but because he doesn't want to be awake. Akito would rather stay Dreaming, exploring strange new places with his memory of Agito until he could wake up at home to the sound of Ikki's loud snoring.

The wrongness isn't helping much either. His skin feels too tight, like it's been stretched across a skeleton too big for it, and his joints ache as though he just finished an S-Class Parts War. His clothes don't feel quite right, fabric falling differently around his shoulders and hips. Fingernails too long. Hair too heavy; strands that normally reach just past his collarbone falling instead to just above his bottom ribs.

"What if-" Akito cuts off what he was going to say, covering his mouth in surprise with a hand. The movement is painful, but he's used to chronic pain and so it's easy to ignore. What's harder to ignore is that his voice is different. Maybe not to everyone else, but to someone as attuned to sound as Akito is, even a small change in his voice is noticeable.

He should get up. Eat, because he's hungry yet has no appetite. Shower, because he feels dirty.

All he wants to do though is stay curled up around his knees, wishing he could be someplace else again.


((ooc: PUBERTY!! YAY!!! 8D)-/ he managed to grow 1/2" and it's gonna mess him up. also his voice is slightly deeper now - so less like a prepubescent girl and more like a... normal teenage girl on the boyish end of the scale, or something. V(o_o)V))

OTA

[i_speak_softly]

When Don groans awake, the first thing he notices is that he doesn't so much have a migraine as what feels like a memory of a migraine.

The second thing he notices is that he's wearing a pendant he doesn't recognize.

The third thing he notices is that the bodies he's jumbled up with in this room-sized blanket-nest belong to people he doesn't quite recognize.

*

Once that's sorted out, he'll attempt to hit the showers. He might have to wait in line, but when his turn comes he can be in and out in under three minutes. He doesn't even need a towel or a change of clothes.

Solomon | closed to Raine

[peacefullywreathed]

Waking up so closely on the heels of that vivid dream of being trapped in a cellar had Solomon's heart beating wildly at first, when he woke and found it hard to move. His eyes snapped open and he regarded the ceiling, controlling his breathing, until he recognised the architecture. For a few moments he kept counting off his breaths, if only to ease the vague sense of a missing limb.

Not that anything was missing; but it had been centuries since he'd been unable to use magic as an extra sense and it made him feel unnervingly vulnerable, and so Solomon pushed himself seated to look around, withholding a groan at the stiffness in his limbs.

His wrists felt heavier than anything else--because, of course, Solomon still wore the magic-binding bracelets. And with that thought led to the next, the dreams that had come after the memory, and the jolt of adrenaline had him glancing around for Raine. She wasn't too far, but she hadn't woken yet and her position hid any evidence of breathing, and without thinking Solomon rolled over and reached out. At first he meant to shake her; then he hesitated and put his fingers to her neck instead to find a pulse without disturbing her.

The Legend of Sokka: Sokka's awakening | OTA

[theideaguy]

[OOC: Katara has the luxury of getting to wake Sokka up directly. For everyone else, you get the awake and perhaps slightly cranky version of Sokka. Katara, just ignore the post and pose your own thing. :D]

Sokka isn't too happy about being woken up. Everything feels wrong. Being in the Dreaming for... however long it was felt like a warm blanket that had been covering his entire person, and waking up is like having that torn away from you and then doused in cold water. Sokka may very well have experienced this very thing at some point in his past, knowing his sister. But that said, he's going to look completely groggy and generally put out. Then again, this isn't much of a change for Sokka, at least for the put out part.

"So did someone forget to wake us up when the Arctic rooster crowed or something?" He yawns widely, not even bothering to cover his mouth. "Because this is for the birds. Is it naptime yet?"

OTA

[michaeljangelo]

It feels as though someone's accidentally hit Mike with a bus.
Then backed over him...and did it again, this time intentionally.

He becomes aware of the world around him in stages, none of them pleasant, but at least the more he wakes up the more the feeling of bus crash fades.
Then, of course, his eyes catch light for the first time in what feels like weeks...and he hisses.

"raph?" his voice rasps out. "Leo?"
A pause.
No...that's not what he was dreaming about. He was dreaming about searching for...
"DONNIE!"

Mike sits up quickly, a bit too quickly. His head swims and just as quickly as he's up he's down again.

"Oooog. Okay. Bad idea. New plan. Sit for a spell."

MILYN'S RELIEF

[ironwood]

Her unsettled reaction to Evastelei's death aside, there is nothing held back as Milyn embraces each of the Foreigners while they wake and shake off the remnants of their long sleep. "I was so worried," she says, and gives them a quick check over on their vitals. "You were gone so long, I didn't know what to think anymore. Here, I'll help you sit up. Wait right there while I get you some water…"

The healer will explain that she has been trapped here along with the Foreigners over the last year, and that while she sometimes glimpsed the city when she fell asleep and dreamed herself, she had no way to verify how accurate it was. She'll sit with them as they recover enough strength to move around without too much trouble, and try to answer any questions that they might have, though it will quickly become apparent that she's holding her normal cheerful demeanour together by threads at the moment.

Don't worry, she will tell them, just a difficult few days, and that everything will be fine now that she knows they're safe.

((OOC: This section is for if your character would like to have a discussion with Milyn upon waking.))

Re: MILYN'S RELIEF

[fearlessherosheart]

"How long is 'so long'?" Tazendra asked curiously. She was annoyed at this feeling of weakness, but... well, it was good to be alive, though she'd not have objected to the afterlife either.

Re: MILYN'S RELIEF

[solo_patria]

When Enjolras sees Milyn, after he's stumbled like an idiot in front of, and been caught by her, one question, above the others, becomes especially important here.

"Taraja." He says simply, the first words he's actually spoken in over a year coming out in an especially hoarse tone, his voice almost shot from the effort. "...she is far away from here." That is a statement, really, but he does want confirmation on one matter.
"Is she all right? And the others? She seems...content enough from what I could tell?"

EXPLORING KEELIAI

[ironwood]

The Midnight Hotel sinks into its foundations on the surface with a vaguely unnerving jolt and a flash of the wards on the walls. The windowpanes are obscured with a white, opalescent haze, and will remain so until the Foreigners have left and re-entered from a given sector. Anyone familiar with the Hotel’s previous location will realise, once they’ve exited, that the Hotel has moved -- but it’s not exactly the most unusual thing …

Keeliai has changed. No longer with the heavy dread and suspicion lingering over every block, the city has become a bustling centre. The structures have been built up; the sewers have been built down. There’s something roughly familiar to aqueducts not only in Water Sector, but Fire and Metal as well. The streets are cleaner than they were, and the kedan seem brighter -- in colour, yes, but also in demeanour. Children play on the street, frequently with toy swords or guns, and play at sieges and defenders, leaders and troops. There’s a kind of fierce glory in their games, a shifting nature which changes the rules on a dime.

There’s very little fear here in comparison to when the Foreigners last saw the city. There’s some wariness, true; some of the better-dressed kedan garner nervous glances and extra courtesy, especially the ones who wear firearms openly on their belts. Most of them wear a badge with a coiled snake on it, but aren’t in any uniform recognisable as a police-force. Regardless, they’re highly respected, and few of the kedan contradict their orders or deny them service.

Areas where the Foreigners were once welcomed will greet them with astonishment and either false cheer or outright disregard. Nothing that once belonged to the Foreigners belongs to them anymore -- their rooms have been ransacked or outright overtaken, their offices usurped. As word spreads of the Foreigners’ return, more and more kedan will stop and stare and whisper on the streets, but few will approach.

((OOC: This section is for once your character chooses to emerge from the Hotel and explore the new face of Keeliai.))

Re: EXPLORING KEELIAI

[whitelotustile]

Iroh had set his affairs in order before going to the hotel, figuring that there were good odds he would not be back -- dead or gone were both options -- so he's not dismayed to learn of the changes, or that he doesn't have his old place. He is a bit disappointed the people he left his tea shop in care of had sold it and turned it into a rug merchant.

At least they were nice rugs.

So, Iroh has his thermos and his emergency stash of tea leaves and is seeking a new job. It's not an unfamiliar sensation, and he does so with the confidence in his skill of a true craftsman.

He's alive; the city is alive, and he can deal with the details as it comes.

Open

[royalguard_style]

Things always gotta be complicated.

Why did he have to be asleep for a year when he has a promise to fulfill. Why? Now he has to crawl over the shell in the hopes that Wan's teapot still exists, and that he could get his hands back on it. He was strongly considering stealing it back once he found it, it wasn't the offending kedan's to begin with, so one jerkish turn deserved another.

But first, he had to actually find the damn thing, and that was what was giving him trouble. Dante can be seen anywhere from the black markets to even the most respectable establishments interrogating anyone he can with an irritated look on his face.

Welcome Center | ota

[wintershepherd]

Once Jack had ascertained that everyone in the Midnight Hotel was fine, albeit disoriented and hungry, and after he'd spoken to his friends and heard how long had passed, he took the air and soared over Keeliai. The changes were vast, startling. On one hand, he was glad for the kedan, that they were starting to build lives that they seemed to want, but on the other hand... it was worrying. He didn't want the Foreigners to be on outs with the natives again, having been here for various levels of distrust to outright hostility over the past two years he'd been on Tu Vishan.

Two years, or three now? He couldn't be sure how that worked. Being a spirit, he didn't age and hadn't woken with any physical changes.

Jack changed direction and headed for central Keeliai, on a path he knew by heart. He alighted in front of the Welcome Center, its facade defaced by previous attacks. He wondered if the building itself was still standing because of Zatanna's wards. Stepping aside, he skirted the debris of what had been the bookshelves, long since torn down...

closed to Cain

[ruinsprofessor]

It was some considerable time after Foreigners had begun waking and finding their way back into Keeliai that Raine had enough of her thoughts and wits together to do so herself. She'd found her staff, too, as misplaced as it had gotten in the dream, and now rather than head out onto the streets alone with no concept of what might have changed in the intervening time, Raine searched out a potential companion.

She was sure she'd seen Cain recently enough, and when she spotted him again she waved briefly before heading toward him. "Do you have some time?" she asked without preamble, once she was in earshot.

OTA

[redlightgreenlight]

Emerging from the Midnight Hotel, Valdis had to shield her eyes from the sun until they adjusted properly. The world still seemed too solid, too harsh, it didn't move and twist, both a comfort and strange at the same time. She had known that the world she had walked into would be different, but the extent of the change was unnerving. It seemed like it had been just yesterday that the city had been under siege by Malicant, but now the depressive air was gone.

Kedan bustled around the streets as if the war the foreigner's had been brought for was long over, which of course it was. It was still difficult to wrap her mind around, she had seen change, but had always experienced it over the course of time and now she had been thrown into an unfamiliar world yet again.

She was determined to make a place for herself, just as she had before, but it seemed that such an endeavor might be more difficult than it had been a year ago. The Kedan had changed, their demeanor and actions were more bright, more focused. It seemed that they had done well without a royal family, and perhaps it was better that way. Yet they had changed perhaps a bit too much, even in a year. Valdis decided to look closer, their souls had once appeared dim, as if they were being suppressed, but now their souls appeared bright against the darkness of the inanimate.

"There's no way," she whispered to no one in particular, "That isn't possible."

Open

[theideaguy]

The first thing Sokka does is trudge off to his home in the Metal Sector. Yes, even if his little soul crystal thing is on a ring on his finger instead of in a lantern, he's going to go off in search of what minimal things he might have left behind. Of course, he's going to be turned away, first after finding that the locks have changed and second after banging on a door to find strange new inhabitants inside. Well that's fine; he didn't want to stay there anyway.

The same goes for practically everywhere else he's familiar with. Katara's house is taken over, Wan and Zuko's house is taken over, Iroh's teashop is taken over, and even Stark Industries isn't what it used to be. That's just great. Now what is he going to do?

Well, the easiest answer is to head back to the Midnight Hotel and at least get some temporary lodging. He's not exactly the richest person on the Shell, but he can find a room for the night at the least.

"At least the people are nicer to us now," he mutters aloud as he's making his way from the hotel desk.

Old & New Faces (Canon Updates/New Arrivals)

[ironwood]

Some of the Foreigners who were missing during the mass awakening beneath the shell will return to Keeliai within the next few weeks, along with some new and confused faces wearing expressions Foreigners might remember from a time when the city still enjoyed more organised influxes of new residents. No longer do these new arrivals wash ashore on the beaches at the edges of the shell, or wake up in basins of water guarded within Keeliai itself. Now, it seems new arrivals can appear anywhere on the shell, even and especially in the middle of nowhere, miles from any civilisation.

This might be particularly jarring for returning Foreigners; the depleted resources of the shell have been built up over the intervening year, leaving Tu Vishan’s back a different place than it was. A day’s walk can take you past farms and aqueducts. It might take a few minutes to recognise the area at all, much less the path back to Keeliai - though kedan workers in the farms will point Foreigners in the right direction.

However long it takes, all arrivals, old and new, will eventually make their way to the city. From there, they’ll need to adapt to all of the changes in atmosphere and reception, just like the Foreigners who awoke in the Hotel.

((OOC: This section is for if your character chose to leave Keeliai with the intention to return (canon updates) or if they were pulled back involuntarily from a later time point. New characters arriving to the city (newly accepted characters) will also arrive in this manner.))

OTA | Forward-dated about a week

[skeletonenigma]

It was exactly five and a half hours after realising he was on Tu Vishan's back once again that Skulduggery wandered into Keeliai. He'd noticed the differences during his trek; noticed the farms, the aqueducts, the frigid attitudes of the scattered kedan. He noticed enough to deduce a large chunk of time had passed, but he didn't know how much. Nor did he care.

To those who would recognise him, he looked the same as before, well-dressed in a tailored suit and all. His bones were perhaps a bit bleached, and he was missing his hat. But apart from that, the only indication anything might have been wrong was Skulduggery's uncharacteristically aimless gait, like he didn't have anywhere he needed to be.

Re: Old & New Faces (Canon Updates/New Arrivals)

[sonjaofyellowcomet]

Something was off.

Sonja awoke unpleasantly, her body sore and grungy, as if she had just woken from a night of drunken revelry (which had only happened a small number of times because of the extremely negative experiences she had since deduced resulted from such debaucheries).

As she tried to push herself up, she felt earth and grass beneath her. She looked around, finding herself in the midst of a dense forest. Sonja quickly ran through a quick list of possibilities. Abduction was rather high on the list, especially considering that kidnapping people and leaving them stranded in a forest to test their capabilities was something she herself had perpetrated on several people in the past. Lash came to mind as the person most likely to have done it, although making conclusions at this juncture was premature. She also considered that she might be dreaming, although she could not recall having felt this gross in a dream before, but then the very nature of dreams was ephemeral, and who was to say that this level of sensory input was ever preserved once the conscious mind reclaimed its hold on the brain?

The first and foremost goal, however, was getting up.

Sonja braced herself on the trunk of a nearby tree as she rose. She didn't recognize the tree as any type she had seen before, but she was hardly up on her arborology. Was arborology the right word? By reflex, Sonja reached for her phone to look it up. It was tucked safely inside her pocket, and once turned on, showed a time of 9:55 pm. The battery was holding steady at 74%, but she had zero bars, and there were no wifi networks in range. The last text she got was from Sami, canceling their study session (again), at 11am earlier that day. At this point, Sonja was definitely leaning on the 'abduction' angle. She put her phone on ultra-power-saving mode, as she had no idea when the next opportunity would come to charge it.

She looked around, and saw a light coming through the trees in the distance. Unsteadily she began walking towards it. As she walked, she gradually became aware of the sounds of insects and birds chirping, just out of sight. If there were any other kind of wildlife, they knew to stay away.

After a few minutes of walking, Sonja passed the densest areas of trees and found herself overlooking an unfamiliar landscape. Before her, the land was divided into clusters of lakes and farmland and forests, but past the short span of rural countryside was a sprawling cityscape.

"I guess that's as good a place to start as any."

* * *

Several hours, and probably a few blisters later, Sonja reached the city limits. Her journey had been a long, unpleasant, and frustratingly isolated one. Several wagons born by large lizard creatures had passed her on the road (She had adapted to the presence of dinosaur oxen rather well, she thought), but the drivers had not heeded her repeated hails. At first she had attributed this to some lack of common language or strange customs. This theory was quickly discounted when she tried to approach a farmstead and was demanded by its residents in clear language (it was not a language that Sonja recognized, but she could understand the words just fine, strangely) that she needed to vacate the premises as expeditiously as possible. She might have argued had the stranger not had a firearm in hand and the apparent wherewithal to use it.

If this was a dream (and at this point, Sonja weighted the possibility of this into the realm of quantum probability), she was ready to wake up.

Lucina Leonidas | New Arrival | 12/14 onwards

[starbinder]

The sounds of the city were familiar if a bit odd, but any similarity between this city and her home ended when Lucina opened her eyes and pushed herself up. This was not Ourania. She blinked, completely confused. The alley where she found herself was shadowed, meaning the sun either hadn't yet reached its peak, or had already passed. Her confusion turned to panic as she realized she couldn't sense Regulus. She made no move to stand up, silently trying to regain composure, unused to the empty feeling in her head, her soul.

Logic soon took over and she began a mental evaluation of her condition. She felt weak, but seemed to be uninjured and other than the lack of her spirit guide's presence, she saw no reason to freak out. Just a little less than a year ago the lack of Regulus' presence would have been a relief, but now Lucina just felt strange. She didn't know how long she had been unconscious, but she hadn't been robbed, her bag was still hanging over one shoulder. But Regulus was gone. No, not gone, at least not completely.

Now that she was calmer, Lucina could sense the lioness. The spirit was distant, too far away to respond, but close enough to be felt if she concentrated. Uncertain of what to do, Lucina simply sat with her back against the wall of the alley, trying to think. She knew that she would have to move at some point, have to talk to the locals and figure out what city she had ended up in.

Perhaps this was all a dream. A vivid dream, but still a dream and she would wake up any moment to a snide comment from Regulus.

[theideaguy]

Now with the new Keeliai, Sokka is finding that many things have changed. One thing that hasn't changed quite so much is the general sentiment of the kedan to the foreigners. At least it wasn't outright antagonistic, but Sokka is finding it generally easier to talk to a brick wall and get something out of it than to actually deal with some of these folk at all. And so he's generally taking back roads and alternate routes. Actual shortcuts, if you will, as opposed to Aang's sense of how short a shortcut could be.

And one of those shortcuts leads through a small little alleyway. It's a slightly more risky direction, but at least he remembers it as vaguely untravelled, or at least it was a year ago. However, he doesn't expect someone to just be sitting in the alleyway by themselves, kind of almost looking oddly out of place and out of sorts. Especially since she doesn't look like your run-of-the-mill kedan.

"Uh... you okay?" Sokka says with some amount of hesitation.