rubycity_ooc | March Test Drive!

Entry tags:

March Test Drive!

Thinking of apping a character but not sure they'll fit in the city walls?

Have no fear, a meme for you is here.

Directions:

Use an RNG to choose a location and prompt, or wait for someone else to tag.

Post with your character with their name and canon on top!

If you'd like, leave contact info for people to get in contact for plotting and other such shenans.

Tag around! Make friends. Don't be afraid to chat OOC while tagging.

Locations

1.TRAIN STATION - The place where everyone gets dumped off at. Your first view of Ruby City, complete with informational posters telling you all about where you've ended up.
2. THE BEACH - Lovely year-round, though in the winter months, you're probably not likely to dip your toes in.
3. THE BLACK STALLION - A rather quaint bar. Supposedly, the burgers are great, but you don't see anyone immediately who's willing to serve you. Maybe you're meant to get it yourself.
4. THE OBELISK - The tall monolith in the center of the city marks the gathering place of many events, though right now it seems to be cold and dark.
5. THE CLOCKTOWER - Offering an impressive view of the city, several residents come here to clear their heads, if they don't mind braving the narrow staircase.
6. THE COFFEE JOINT - the front windows are warm and welcoming, and it seems there's always someone friendly enough to fix you a cup when you wander through.
7. THE CATACOMBS - Intrepid, aren't you? Those weird holes may beg exploring, but go too deep and you're going to be in a lot of trouble, considering the viciousness of the creatures held within.
8. THE CITY STREETS - All told, Ruby City is a lovely place, once you get past the fact that several of the buildings look derelict and on the verge of falling down. There's no harm in doing a little sightseeing.
9. THE PARK - You thought it'd be a lovely stroll, but the park is anything but friendly, if those approaching wolf-like creatures are any indication.
10. CHOOSE YOUR OWN - Don't like what we've come up with? Feel like picking your own place? There's a whole host of lovely locations to choose from in the City.

Scenarios

1. NEW ARRIVAL - Step off that train, walk down the street. People usually latch on to newcomers to try and help them out. Even if you look shy, the other residents probably won't be!
2. WATCH TALK - Feeling lost? Disoriented? Don't worry, everyone feels that way on their first day. Fortunately - if the signs at the station are to believed - the watch in your pocket can be used to talk to whoever else might be here.
3. BAD WEATHER - Aw, man. Whether it's snow, or rain, or just plain cold, today was definitely the wrong day to get dumped off in a City in the middle of nowhere.
4. A RUN-IN - Maybe you weren't watching. Maybe they weren't. Either way, you just bumped into someone. Perhaps apologies are in order?
5. HELP, IT HURTS - Clumsy, aren't you? Perhaps wherever the train brought you from wasn't so friendly, or you just tripped and twisted your ankle. Either way, you're in a bit of pain. Hopefully someone will notice your booboos and help patch you up.
6. HUNGRY - It isn't very obvious sometimes that restaurants are what they are, especially in a place like Ruby City. Where can a person go to get a bite to eat around here?
7. MISTAKEN IDENTITY - Hey, there's someone you know! --Or maybe not.
8. BEING FOLLOWED - Maybe you're just being paranoid, or maybe you've got a reason to be afraid. Whatever it is, it feels like there's eyes on you...
9. CURRENT EVENTS - None at the moment, but feel free to look through our event tag!
10. CHOOSE YOUR OWN - Don't like any of these ideas? Feel free to come up with your own!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"No." In more ways than one, really. He can't return to the place that he has called home since losing his parents, and there is no other place that he belongs to - many more where he is certain that he will find no welcome, and obviously he would not wish to return to where he was before finding himself "here", wherever that is - it might well be a dream or a cruel illusion (but then, why pick someone that he has never met - yet there are many schemes that he only understands when it is too late) ...and if it is that, he is scared of what will follow, scared of what accepting help will mean. Scared of what will be made of it - but what will be made of refusal, too, and he wavers, trying to keep his composure, to retreat into himself to only display calm, eyes that for a moment reflected fear becoming distant again.

He needs to at least put on a facade of calm and control, even if he feels anything but that inside. Perhaps... Even if the answer might well be a lie, he has to ask, and maybe the reply will tell him more than any other question could facilitate. Not even quite a question in phrasing, but...

"Tis a strange place, and for how I found myself here I would think that I am dreaming." Is this place real?

Maglor answers him with a wry smile.

"You are not the first to think so, and will doubtless not be the last. But this is no dream, I am afraid, although it seems as such at times. Still, if you have no place to go, I think me my niece will not begrudge another of the Eldar a room and bed, even if you eventually chose a different place to live. Would that suit?

Ah... and I should introduce myself, I suppose - Maglor I am, the last of the Feanorionnath. If I have done harm to you or yours, I am sorry, and I swear to you that I mean them and you no harm, at this time."

He almost answers no more than I would soon have done to one who has shown me nothing but kindness, and all that are under his care because as much as he knows about the Oath and what it has wrought already, and how it may break loose again, there is no way that it will surpass the breaking of trust that he knows to not be far into the future should this be nothing but a trap. He doesn't know what Morgoth's exact plans are, but even if it is only that he will lead them there once broken...

He shakes the thought off. "It is not needed." And then he considers everything else, and suddenly freezes, something in his eyes frantic and dead at once, and oh, it is a lie then this is what it is about.

Idril.

For only a moment he closes his eyes and then stands a bit straighter still, his fingers digging into the thin, scratchy fabric under his hands, refusing to shy away, trying to hide all that comes with the realization (shame, but also fury and fear, loneliness and contempt, burning jealousy and rejection, yearning and more shame still, and a terrible loneliness inside that) behind the part that is cold fury, trying to force what is left of it into a wall around himself.

What is this, a test or torture - and what reaction will be best? There is no answer, and in the end all that he can do is stand as proudly as he may with how mangled he is and glare at Maglor.

"I will find a place."

But he can't bring himself to turn down the coat, it looks terribly tempting. Instead he focuses on another part of what Maglor said. "And I know not what game it is that you play this time, yet we are not as removed to know not that no son of Feanor has found his end but one."

Maglor crooks a confused eyebrow at Maeglin's confusion of emotions, and then flinches quietly.

"Not... when you are from, perhaps. Time is... strange here. But believe me. For our sins you and all we have harmed are well avenged."

"My niece is from the Third Age. She knows little of the First beyond the history she was taught. I will stay away, if it makes it easier for you."

He shrugs, still wary, oh so wary, and weary as well. "I have not been harmed by you or your kin, and thus there is nothing for which I may be avenged; and doubt that anything that you may do or endure will change how those close to me feel where it concerns you."

It is the furthest from what is important to him, the fate of the Feanorians, at least here and now (least their fate included attacking Angband right at this very moment), and thus the easiest to talk about.

"...So tell me of this niece of yours then. What is her name?" What strangeness is this?

Maglor stops and looks at him carefully, wondering at the familiarity he can see.

"Have you not? You would be one of the few then." Familiar, familiar, but why?

"Celebrian is Galadriel's daughter. Artanis, if you know her by her Quenyan name. Forgive me for asking but... you look... you remind me of someone. I have given you my name, might I ask for yours?"

He hesitates. Maglor should know his name through tidings from the other side of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. And if it is not him... he'll at least not have given up new information.

So he answers. "Maeglin. Son of Aredhel. I am born too late for you to have harmed me." Though he feels like this might be one of the last times that he introduces himself as her son, not wanting to sully her name with what he might soon do.

Edited 2015-03-16 19:39 (UTC)

Oh! Maglor draws a soft breath in wonder and takes a slow step closer, eyes searching Maeglin's face, seeing now the similarities that he missed, his mother's eyes, her hair...

"Aredhel's boy" He breathes softly. "I thought I would never have a chance to meet you. Welcome, kinsman, although I fear I am not the sort that most wish to have welcome them anywhere. I wondered what you would be like. It gives me joy to see you at last."

When is he from asks Curufin carefully

Look at the way he is warns Maedhros I think you can guess

Step carefully says Celegorm Don't frighten him

It is more welcome than he would have expected, as touched as he obviously is. He's not sure how to reply at all (if this is not an illusion ...no, he has no clue if it is and if it is not).

"Who told you of me?"

"Mostly" Maglor admits dryly "The survivors of Gondolin. They did not paint you in terribly favourable light, nephew. But who knows better than the Feanorionnath how badly good intentions may twist? Especially under torture. And no one told me directly, in any case. Most people were not... talking to us, around that time. But one hears talk, and a bard has ways of getting information, at need."

He doesn't close his eyes. He keeps them open, staring, still trying to find the corners of the illusion, the signs, though he doubts that he could lift it even if he could find them (he's no match for Morgoth's lieutenant or the Vala himself or even a good number of their underlings, even less now than he was a day before, and less then than the day before that...). Staring in hopes of catching when it sways but also in the sharp hope of staying here, staying where it is cold but where a coat is offered, where there is light overhead... where he is still broken but where there is no immediate chance of it being continued.

"You lie. If this is truly another place, then for what reason would I have returned into capture?"

"I do not" Maglor shrugs and takes no offence "But I have nothing to prove my words - only that from where I stand it has happened already, although it has not yet, for you. Time, as I said, is very strange here. We none of us know how it works, only that those who return to their own worlds say they return to the point at which they left."

He meets Maeglin's eyes calmly and lets him look for whatever he wishes.

"I could not save you, kinsman." Wryly he admits "I could not save anyone, not even myself. But... here and now. I can know you, the nephew I never had a chance to meet."

"...Must all return?" If this is reality - if Maglor really is not lying... maybe he can stay. Maglor also speaks as if Maeglin did return to Angband (to Gondolin), but there is a small spark of hope in Maeglins eyes as he asks, hope that maybe, he will not have to return, hope that maybe all that he fears will happen in the future won't.

Then, indeed, Maglor could save him, in a twisted way.

Grief in his eyes at that.

"I do not know. But nephew... if I remember it happening..."

If I remember it happening, has it not already happened?

"I am sorry."

The hope is crushed, and then it turns into an almost mad glint, a hope that is sharp and desperate and full of despair. "If I were to die here, they would have nobody to send back."

He doesn't want to die, but picking between two evils...

"No!" Alarmed, Maglor takes a step towards him, hand reaching out before forcing himself to stillness, remembering that most do not welcome him in that way.

"Please nephew, do not say such things. Whatever may pass there, here you are alive, and I would grieve to lose you before I have had even the smallest chance to know you."

"Yet if being dead in this world should mean that I would not live to betray Gondolin like the coward which I am, I will gladly choose it." He averts his eyes as he says that, not quite as ready to sacrifice whatever life is left to him for the sake of others as he thinks that he should be. But. It's not like he can trust Morgoth, and if he dies soon after the betrayal... their kind is not allowed to leave past Arda after their deaths, so he will have to face everyone again.

A quiet noise of pain and Maglor takes another step closer.

"Why must our family always end in tragedy? You do not deserve that fate, even if you chose it. But death here may not be made permanent in any case."

"There is a curse." He wasn't there for it being spoken, nor for the circumstances to which it responded, but he has come to assume that it must be hereditary.

There is a sagging somewhere between despair and relief when he learns that dying might not be an option either and simply stands there after, looking lost. If there is nothing that he can do... he at least won't turn down what hospitality he is offered, but he's not sure how to accept it at this point.

Edited 2015-03-23 09:46 (UTC)

"There is" He nods. "But why must it lie on our descendents and cousins, who swore no Oath?" Quietly, he takes the final step into arms reach and offers his hand.

"I cannot save you nephew. But will you at least let me help you?"

He cannot answer to that, to either question, but while it is born of simple ignorance of the causes and too many dark thoughts on it with the first question, it is simple exhaustion and disbelief of being offered help from someone who knows what he will do, even if it is a Feanorian, for the second question, and he pulls the cloak a bit closer around himself and takes the proffered hand, carefully and with a little wince (none of the wounds on his hands are so bad as that they wouldn't heal within a few days, barely above paper cuts and scratches, but there are still so many of them, especially on the insides of his hands, that touching anything comes with a painful, unpleasant burning and stinging sensation.

The hand that closes around him is scarred but gentle, and Mgalor tugs gently to lead him in the direction of the house.

"Keep the cloak, nephew. But come, let us get your wounds treated and you into dry things."

He'll follow silently, cloak pulled tightly around himself with his free hand, his eyes on the ground or quickly, hastily skipping around, staying on nothing longer than a few seconds.

When they enter the house, he hesitates once more, as there are voices on the upper floor, distant enough to not be understandable but definitely in the house, too. He pauses to understand, make out voices - someone that he knows? Or ...worse, someone who knows of Maeglin the way in which Maglor knows of him, and will they treat him as kindly as Maglor?

Maglor tips his head, listening and then smiles wryly at Maeglin.

"My uncle - the Noldoran Arafinwe, and his son, Finrod. I cannot hear Galadriel, but like as not she is sitting there smugly. Her daughter Celebrian owns the house. Come inside nephew. Come and be welcome."

He hesitates, almost steps away again. "They have no reason to show me welcome, even less than you." They really don't, for he has betrayed their nephew and cousin and his family. He'll exclude himself from family relations easily, for the only family of his that he has ever met he betrayed or saw die before his eyes, and family that one has not met will always be less important than that which one has met. And they would have known Turgon and Idril and all around them. He wronged this people's family, and even if Maglor seems gladdened to have met him, there is no guarantee that others will react the same. It really is rather unlikely, really, because it isn't the logical reaction. And while he could normally deal with unfriendly or scary or hostile reactions, right now he only wants a warm place and a little food and to curl up and sleep a sleep that will hopefully be dreamless and bring healing.

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