March Test Drive!

[rubycitymods]

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!

Comments

[mining_mole]

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.

[bythewaves]

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

[mining_mole]

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?"

[bythewaves]

"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."

[mining_mole]

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?"

[bythewaves]

"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."

[mining_mole]

"...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.

[bythewaves]

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."

[mining_mole]

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...

[bythewaves]

"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."

[mining_mole]

"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.

[bythewaves]

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."

[mining_mole]

"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.

[bythewaves]

"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?"

[mining_mole]

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.

[bythewaves]

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."

[mining_mole]

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?

[bythewaves]

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."

[mining_mole]

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.

[bythewaves]

Maglor stops in the hall and looks back at Maeglin with a raised eyebrow. "Do they? You maybe will one day betray Gondolin, but trust me when I say that what I do will be, has been, far, far worse. And you betray a city under duress - under torture and threat of torture, and with temptation dangling you in the face. Everything I did, Maeglin, I did full knowing and of my own choice. If they welcome me here, I do not think they will turn you aside."

Gently. "Come inside. You are my guest now, and whatever else, the rules of hospitality still hold."

[mining_mole]

He wants to reply to this, but a wave of exhaustion washes over him and he stumbles, and whatever reactions there will be to his presence, he really doesn't have all that many reasonable options right now. The other option is to curl up in an abandoned building and hope that he'll not freeze to death.

So he follows, stepping into the building and letting the door fall shut behind himself.

[bythewaves]

"Maeglin!" A gasp of worry, and Maglor makes an aborted move towards him when he does, relaxing only when it seems that Maeglin is fine.

"You are safe here, nephew. I promise. Come and rest by the fire, and I will fetch you something hot to eat and drink. I think there was soup left on the stove. We need not even tell the rest of the house you are here, yet."

[mining_mole]

"...Thank you." He lets himself be led around, though his eyes dart around nervously, and his reaction to fire will both search for warmth and be scared of the flames, but he sits by it anyway, unmoving, his eyes following Maglor as he moves about the room.

[bythewaves]

Maglor moves with the assurance of one who has been here a while, knowing where things are, practiced and comfortable.

"Tea, I think, on weather like this, and I am sure I left some soup... ah, here. This is a marvel, you know" He pats the fridge. "An ice box which requires no ice! I wish I was better able to understand how it works."

[mining_mole]

"I could look at it and see if I can find out." There is a spark of something else in his eyes then, older than fear and despair and shame, and he leans forward a bit to peer at the box. He's a miner rather than a smith, though both are crafts that he would pursue with the greatest interest in a heartbeat, if they were offered to him; but mining requires much tinkering and mechanics as well. He may be no match when compared to Celebrimbor, but compared to others, he does think that he is. He may find out.