tushanshu_logs | [EVENT] A NEW WORLD ORDER

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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...

Raine had only been to the Welcome Center once or twice, when she first arrived, and afterward mostly simply passed it by. But in the wake of everything, and not even knowing if new Foreigners would continue to arrive or what resources the current Foreigners had left to them save the Hotel, it seemed prudent to at least take a look.

When she did find it again, there was another person there, one it seemed she should vaguely recognize but couldn't quite place. "Hello," she said, to announce her presence as much as to greet him, and moved to examine the damages herself, somewhere between curious and sad.

Jack looked up at the greeting, his arms full of broken shelves. He seemed surprised for a moment that someone else had arrived, then he flashed her a grin. "Hi," he answered. "You're..." he searched his memory, for he knew they'd passed but that it had been a while since she'd gone through the arrival system here. "Miss Raine, right?"

She blinked, then nodded. She hadn't really expected to be remembered, and she herself couldn't quite bring his name to mind, though she was sure now he had worked at the Welcome Center. "Yes," she said, "that's right. Just Raine is fine. I'm sorry, it's been long enough I don't remember your name."

Those bookshelves were a complete loss, weren't they. It was a pity. Raine tilted her head to indicate the shelves he held. "Do you want some help with those?" She was here, she might as well, and this building could yet be useful for them in the future.

"Jack Frost," he answered, not minding at all, creating a little trail of snowflakes to follow his hand as he went. Most people were contending with quite a lot upon their arrival, and he couldn't recall them speaking since.

The bookshelves were well and truly a write-off, definitely. Jack didn't mind the help though, and nodded. "Sure, thanks. Wood's so scarce -- err, at least it was, I'm not sure about now -- that I was going to see if one of the builders could use them for something. Less waste, and maybe it'll get us a bit of goodwill."

Raine followed the trail of snowflakes with interest, noting the lack of any visible effort on his part. "Not just a figurative name, I see," she remarked, and, leaning her staff against one wall, started picking through another pile of debris for the more intact pieces. "It's a good idea. I don't know that it will help with goodwill, but it certainly can't hurt at this point." There was the hint of a sigh in her voice, resigned to an uphill battle. Again.

Jack's bright blue eyes twinkled at her remark. "Nope," he answered. "Spirit of Winter at home. Unless Mother Nature's replaced me by now, which would really suck 'cause it'd probably be Yuki-Onna, and she's not nearly as cool about snow days as I am."

"Me either," he admitted. "But it's exactly as you said, it can't hurt. I've got a cart out the back, so any boards that are in good shape, let's stack them in there."

"All right," she agreed. She found one piece that looked of reasonable enough quality, set it aside for the moment while looking for another.

"Of Winter," Raine repeated, curious. "Seasons, rather than elements? Interesting." She had no trouble with the spirit concept, though the idea that such embodiments could be replaced was also a new and curious one. "Is Mother Nature also a spirit?"

"Sometimes elements have spirits too," Jack answered, gripping a broken shelf and giving it a few strong tugs until it came loose from the wall.

"She is, and she's one of the old ones who's been around for a long time. She's kind of..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, she's kind of like nature, I guess. Nice and motherly one minute and scary as hell the next. Which is somewhere between funny and ironic, given who her dad is."

One of the last things he'd learned from the Guardians during the short interim between defeating Pitch and being pulled to Keeliai. It felt like a lot longer than two-or-three years ago.

"But only sometimes." Raine shifted smaller pieces, discontent with those she was finding. "In my world, spirits are almost exclusively associated with the elements. However, I doubt it's quite the same concept." It hadn't been in other cases, at any rate, though Jack was the closest she'd found to approximating it in other worlds.

She did have to wonder what Celsius would make of him, and the reverse, though it was evident winter had to involve more than simple ice.

Another shelf that was large enough to be reasonable salvage. Raine stacked it with the first, kept sorting through. "It sounds appropriate, that her name should resemble her. Who is her father?"

"Only sometimes," Jack echoed. "Sometimes spirits personify other things. Like... Lady Luck is the spirit of good luck, Hanasaka Jiisan is the spirit of the cherry blossoms in the spring, and Sandy -- Sandman -- is who dispenses dreams to everyone. Lots of us have different areas we look after, and sometimes there's overlap, depending."

"Her father is the boogeyman, Pitch Black," Jack answered. "Also known as the Nightmare King. He controls fear."

[EVENT] A NEW WORLD ORDER

Welcome Center | ota

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