felldenlogs | (OPEN) The Gathering Storm

Entry tags:

(OPEN) The Gathering Storm

WHO: Lightning and anyone!
WHAT: Trying to salvage what can be salvaged, and gathering what can be gathered.
WHERE: Kyst, farms in Moon territory, and forests anywhere.
WHEN: Oct.8th - Oct.21st
WARNINGS: Rotten food and likely animal death (hunting context).

Kyst
[Kyst is bedecked in orange and green, red and black. Banners hang from doorways and balconies, the deep colors of All Hallow's Eve having changed the city's look entirely. The mood in the streets is festive, children celebrating and the adults in high spirits as they prepare for the colder months to come.

"No, no, no! This is all wrong!"

At least, so long as one stays out of the east markets. The normal hustle and bustle has been replaced by something a little more frantic, every seller that once sold fruits and vegetables scrambling through their stalls, their voices pitched high as they call back and forth between one another. It's at one of these stalls that Lightning can be found, knife in one hand and what was once a firm apple in the other. The merchant who owns the stall, hands on his head, stares at it.

"How can this be happening?! How many apples is this?!]

Fifteen. They're all like this.

["Try another! You--" Grabbing another apple and a knife, he forces them into the hands of anyone unlucky enough to be walking near enough to grab. "Help us! Sort through anything that's not rotten and--Em!" He turns, calling after his teenage helper, "Bring out the other barrel! We have to sort through all of it!"

And then he's gone, darting off to go deal with something else. Lightning's still frowning at the apple in her hands, the once firm cream flesh turned to brown mush. Food doesn't rot this fast, does it? If the apple in the newcomer's hand is anything like hers, anything like the rest of the poor merchant's stall, then that's the norm here.

This...isn't good.]

Moon
[As the days go by, the situation only gets worse. What was left of the harvest has all but rotted by now, but what's left in the fields is no better. The farms within Moon territory are scrambling, trying to save what they can, and it's all hands on deck. Lightning has been here before, helped to protect this farm before the Harvest, so the owner knows her. It's why he's fine with leaving her giving orders to a group of farmhands, and anyone unlucky enough to have come by this way.]

Rotten wheat over there, good wheat towards the silos!

[Over there being in a big pile left in a large patch of freshly turned mud. Lightning's got her hair tied back, a red scarf wound around her mouth and nose. The farmhands, their masks and gloves tied tight around their own faces and hands, dump once golden and now blackened wheat into the pile before they scramble back. Lightning holds up a hand, flames dancing to life in her palm before she lets it fly and--

The whole pile goes up in flames. It does nothing for the smell, smoke mixing with rot, and Lightning tucks her scarf up a little higher on her face. Her eyes are hard as she turns to the nearest farmhand.]

Bring the next batch!

[Help out or stay out of the way. She's going to be busy for a while.]

Wilds
[The situation is getting worse by the day. As the farm workers and merchants scramble to salvage what they can, as the cooks and bakers hurry to preserve what they can, Lightning is taking a different approach. Putting her in a kitchen would be a pure disaster, plain and simple, but hunting? Hunting she can do. Not as well as Fang, and she's not the most subtle woman in this world, but meat is meat. It's the best option they've got.

It's why she's out here, probably lost and definitely not where she started, crouched in a copse of trees with her deep blue cloak drawn tight around her and her sword in hand. Across the way? A deer nosing through the undergrowth for choice morsels to eat. It hasn't seemed to notice Lightning's presence, but the approach of another person will certainly set it off. As it is, any rustle of brush or snap of twig will turn three heads towards the noise; the deer, Lightning, and Lightning's accompanying spirit, though the latter is clearly the most relaxed of the three. Join them in the hunt? Spook the deer off to save it from the wrong side of the dinner table? Totally your call.]

(ooc: Lightning will be on patrol in Kyst and various locations in Moon for Week 2, so feel free to hit her up anywhere there, or hit me on Plurk (

saratogaroad) and we can work out a custom starter!)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah, that's right! ( right down to the greens, even. finally, something to get genuinely pumped about! )

Back home there's a couple farms where you can rent them even, but, uh— ( there's a slight curl of his lip as he hesitates... ) You're not going to tell me they pull daggers out from behind their wings or something, are you?

[She can't help it; between the twist of his expression and the incredulousness of that question, Lightning laughs. It's really more of a cross between a snort and a bark of laughter, but it's still a laugh.]

No, no daggers. Their beaks were all the weapon they needed. [A second, then:] They would throw us if they got too upset, but they weren't hiding any secrets under their feathers.

[Not like this world. What're the odds to have two worlds share so much. Her brow furrows, and grabbing the first thing she can think of, she tosses out a question of her own.]

Do the names Odin, Shiva, or Bahamut mean anything to you?

( honestly, it felt pretty good to hear her laugh like that, even if it was half-concealed by a snort. she usually seemed quite serious so seeing her loosen up made noct feel more at ease, too.
at least, for all of five seconds as he listened to her next question. )

Shiva... yeah— Bahamut too. They're— sort of like gods, I guess you could say. ( of all the places that prophecies might have followed him to... ) First time I've heard of an Odin, though.

But there are Six of them. Sometimes we call them Astrals... ( there's some hesitation in his tone, as he casts her a sidelong glance, wondering what they meant to her. )

[Gods. How does it always keep coming back to that? The faction leaders share behavior with the fal'Cie, and now the Eidolons have become the Astrals. This many shared things between two worlds can't be just a coincidence. There has to be something else behind it.]

My world calls them Eidolons. They're summons who come to help l'Cie who can't make up their minds.

[Murder masquerading as mercy. Fight or die. The l'Cie way. She doesn't bother explaining what a l'Cie is, sidestepping around a harried merchant rushing back the way they'd come.]

I used to be able to summon Odin. Two people I know can summon Shiva and Bahamut. [She turns to face him, eyes shrewd. Is there another similarity here?] Could people in your world summon the Astrals?

["There are no gods with miracles to save us, no matter where you look." As false as the voice had been, it hadn't been a lie. Just how godlike are these Astrals of his anyway?]

Eidolons, huh... ( 'help make up their minds?' noct wasn't entirely sure what that could mean but... he supposed it could go either way. it was a little hard to imagine titan being helpful though, unless a giant foot to the face was what a 'l'Cie' needed at the time... )

Some people could, yeah. ( seemed he was doing a little side-stepping of his own with that answer. following it up after a brief pause with a little more information... ) Really just— the Oracle or someone from the royal bloodline, though. Not just anyone... They had to be able to convene with them, form a covenant— something like that.

( but moving on, coughcough— )

Never heard of a l'Cie though. That something similar?

Edited 2019-11-12 07:24 (UTC)

[Not just anyone, huh? Well, there is that to consider, but only royals or an Oracle, huh? There's a big difference. Lightning shakes her head as they pass through the gate and out into the wilds. There's less people out here, at least.]

Not really. l'Cie could be anyone.

[Your neighbor, the little kid from another city, even your nearest and dearest family member.]

They were people chosen by the fal'Cie, the ones who ruled my world, and given a mission to complete. The Eidolons came when we had a choice we couldn't make.

[We. She closes her eyes as she realizes what she just said. How easy it's gotten to admit to being a l'Cie in a world that just...doesn't care about that sort of thing. Magic is so commonplace here that no one cares how others got it. Still...it can be hard to shake off the past.]

Guess you could call fighting them to earn the right to summon them a covenant. A pact sworn in blood.

( being out in the open now, noctis takes the chance to do a sweep of the area, just to make sure there's nothing looming in the immediate area. months on the open road had sort of... ingrained it into him, you could say. what draws his gaze back to lightning is that quick "we" that he catches, however. )

A pact sworn in blood, sure.

( but there's something slightly bitter in tone as he repeats her choice of words. )

The blood of whoever's lucky enough for them to be testing, I guess.

( the blood of his friends, his own... maybe even luna's... )

So those friends of yours— ( the ones that could apparently summon the glacian and the draconian— ) they were uh, l'Cie then, right?

( and there's just something about the way he asks, or maybe it's the look that he gives her while he says it... that almost seems to tack on a 'and you, too?'
someone chosen by a 'fal'Cie'... gods, perhaps? )

Yeah. They are.

[They've both got pasts to be bitter about it, it seems. She eyes him as they walk, catching his eye and his question in the same moment. She turns over her answer for a few long strides, lingering paranoia and distrust warring with the need to build trust, the understanding that, if they're going to stand any chance of survival, they need allies.

It's not about sides, it's about surviving. And Noctis has a decent head on his shoulders...Hell with it.]

There were six of us before I was brought here. Our mission was to destroy our home. We chose a different path. We chose to destroy the fal'Cie and give Cocoon back to the people.

[Jury's still out on if they'd succeed or die trying, but just saying it should make her stance plenty clear: she's not here to take orders from the faction leads. Never has been, never will.]

( six, was it? figures.
noct squints just slightly at her unfamiliar terms, but thinks he just might have it figured out enough to ask— )

So wait, are the fal'Cie like gods? Are you saying you guys chose to punch gods in the face instead of just bending to their will?

( he lets that hang in the air for a little while to digest. eventually following it up with what seems to be almost an afterthought... )

Because that's a plan I could get behind.

( not to mention it seemed to play all too well off of their current situation... )

You could call them that. My world doesn't have gods, but they were close enough. Powerful enough. [A sidelong look at him.] Like the faction leaders.

[Let him make of that what he will, but her history--and the choices she made in it--are plenty obvious by now. Between choosing to destroy the fal'Cie back home and her barely repressed rebellious words, her path is clear. The only question left is when she chooses to walk it.

And if she'll be walking it alone. Judging by his words, that's becoming less and less of a thing already.]

They all needed a few punches. Pretty sure it's the same here.

( like the faction leaders... right. those guys. no wonder she seemed to be able to approach all of this with the practiced patience of a veteran— it apparently wasn't a far cry off of the bullshit she'd already faced, from the sounds of it. )

Not just here— sounds like it's that way in a lot of places. ( back on eos, too. oh, was that blasphemous? whoops. ) I don't remember Titan being too happy when he invited my friends and I to come down and visit with him. Though he asked for those hits...

( at least, he thinks titan did.
wait, did he just...? eyes widening like he'd just let a cat out of the proverbial bag, he could only think to follow up his sudden revelation with a— ) Uh...

[Not far off at all. A little too close for comfort, actually, and in all the wrong ways. A little bit like the pieces coming together from Noctis' world, too; there's way too many things the same for it to be a coincidence. Both eyebrows make a leap for her hairline.]

Titan? Taller than a skyscraper, makes your bones rattle when he talks Titan?

[Noctis gets an appraising look, but it's one that's free of reproach or concern. She's the last person to be bothered by someone choosing to fight their gods. Really, she's more impressed the scrawny guy chose to take on something that size!]

How'd you walk away from that one?

Yeah... brains, bones— and just about everything in between.

( the headache had been especially bad, at the time.
but hey, at least she wasn't calling him out on his ties to the six. yet, at least. noctis seems happy to keep the conversation rolling along to avoid further explanation there though...
there just may have been a slight skip in his step at that appraising look she cast his way, though. )

Wouldn't have been able to come out in one piece if it hadn't been for the guys. ( the empire had played its part too mind you but... well, minor details. )

Funny how even a two-handed sword can look like a toothpick when you're using it against a foot the size of a trailer truck. His way of "testing" us— ( which is complete with air quotes and all— ) less about helping us make up our minds, and leaning more towards "proving your worth" I guess.

( and just a brief pause, before he tacks on a curious— ) So you knew him too, eh?

[Yet. It's not really relevant here anyway, and she's not about to go calling him "Your Highness" anytime soon. As far as she's concerned, here they're just soldiers. Conscripted, sure, but everything else got left behind in their home worlds.

Well. Almost everything else. She scoffs at his question, her eyes rolling skyward.]

Yeah. We've met. The Titan I knew sounds a lot more like yours. Had us run through these stupid trials to prove how strong we were.

[Ending with one hell of a battle against an Undying. That had been a fun afternoon. Not. It's less important than the pieces slotting into place in her mind. She shakes her head, looks back to him.]

That's five things our worlds share, you know. Think we're past coincidences here.

[Is it possible, somehow, that they're from the same world, just wildly different times? Wouldn't be the first time.]

( being addressed like that in a place like this might just have him blowing a gasket anyway— and there was no hammerhead in this world to roll him into for a quick fix. )

Sounds about right, yeah.

( his cogs don't quite turn as quickly as hers do, and when she voices that last part, noct's head tilts to the head just slightly as though he's trying to piece together the an answer for her. but unfortunately— )

I'm not sure what it could mean but, maybe its no coincidence that the two of us wound up in this situation, either, then.

( truth be told, he hadn't asked anyone about chocobos yet... or divine tests, for that matter.
ah, but more importantly, at the top of a small incline he looks ahead. )

Oh, hey— isn't that...? ( the farm they'd set out for? )

[It's starting to look like there's no such thing as coincidences. Between the connections they share and the seeming connections between this world and her own...the pieces are falling together a little too perfectly.

But it's something to set aside because now they have a different problem.]

It is.

[And it's a wreck. Even from this far the spread of the rot is evident in the fields with spreading patches of purplish-black, the trees once hearty now streaked with white. The farm hands are running around like headless chocobos, trying to save what they can, but the damage is plentiful and spreading fast. Lightning sucks in a breath through her teeth.]

I don't think there's anything we can do for them now.

( he had more questions. plenty more, but the state of the land they arrived on smacked him back into their grim reality. )

So much for the plan to help replenish their stock...

( there wasn't even much point in announcing their presence, with the state the workers were in. noctis cringed— the smell of rot finding him even all the way out here. ) No going back empty-handed, right?

( so, plan b it was. there's a glance in lightning's direction before he tilts his head in the towards the treeline on the opposite side of the land— )

Figure that's as good a place as any to start?

[That's thankfully not the Gods Wood, but the trees are still covered in shadows. Deep and dark, they offer plenty of cover and rich undergrowth still unaffected by whatever's ripped through the farms and stocks. The forest is still healthy, and what's inside should be, too. It's their best shot.]

Yeah. Should be something hiding in there.

[Small game if nothing else. Probably not a Behemoth, but still...something. She glances in Noct's direction.]

Keep as quiet as you can. We don't want to scare off anything that's still in there.

[Then they'd really go back empty-handed!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

(OPEN) The Gathering Storm

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

yikes, so sorry i fell off the face of the earth for awhile......

no worries!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject