❪ introlog: #6 ❫ city of secrets

[natha]

You've spent the last few days on Thesa Station, taking in the knowledge that your world is no more. Now, the time to put all your survival training into practice has arrived: El Nysa needs you, and you're here to help the planet thrive. Are you ready? THE DESCENT     All refugees on the station are called to the hangar, where a large-scale teleporter awaits. Simply step onto the space between the arrays and wait; everyone will be sent down to the planet together. Before they depart, all refugees will be given a cold weather survival kit with warm clothing, rations, and bedding. The arrays build into a brilliant wash of light, creating a column that travels all the way from Thesa Station to the surface of El Nysa, teleporting the refugees to the planet on an aurora. Once on the planet's surface, refugees receive one last message from Darma. It has been a long, perilous year for you, refugees. And yet we must ask you to brave further peril. Within Nadril are the secrets to how poor Ysverai's revival was hidden from our sight and how this disaster has come to our star. Find the first refugee from beyond this planet, a man named Magda. He will not speak to us, for much has come between us, but to you… If you prove yourselves, he may be willing to answer your questions. We beseech you, for there is a veil over Nadril that hides all within from us. There may yet be more untold dangers waiting to befall this planet. For the good of all who make this world home, we ask you to lend us your aid. There is yet one more favor we would ask of you. In warding off the Storm's encroachment, the physical aspect of ourselves that you call Thesa Station was damaged. We must remain to continue repairs to El Nysa and to deal with Ysverai, but there should be suitable technology within Nadril that could be used for spare parts. If you have the chance to find it and can return it to us, it would hasten— Darma's message crackles with static, another image overlaying hers — her broadcast is cut off and replaced with another. A more sullen and alien voice takes Darma’s place, overlapping on itself in an ominous reveal. It has been a long, perilous year for you, refugees. And yet you’ve only just arrived here. To say I’m not disappointed in your… generation would be to lie, and I am nothing if not an honest creature. But I suppose these have been unusual circumstances. You must ask yourself this — are you only here as Darma's lapdogs? I can assure you, it's not worth being on the Natha's leash. With time, that will be something you'll have to learn for yourself. If you're so determined to come find Nadril, then follow the path north, and you'll find the border. What awaits you is revelation, if you're up to the challenge. A FROZEN LAND     The refugees land on a literally frozen world, both in temperature and time. Curls of icy wind hold swirls of snow aloft and an uncanny silence is broken only by the crunch of hoarfrost underfoot. Only Darma's protection allows the refugees to move through this frozen world — and movement is very necessary. Bitter cold sneaks through even the thickest clothing and without warning, a snowstorm rises: unnaturally quickly, a wall of white howls directly in the refugee's path. Bizarrely, the way back is perfectly calm; it's obvious that this storm is no product of nature. Magda's challenge becomes clear: the only way to Nadril lies through this storm. Visibility within the storm is near zero, the whiteout hiding any landmarks from view and making navigation near impossible. The only guidance refugees have is a sporadic path of faint, greenish lights, easily lost in the raging storm. Refugees need all the survival skills they practiced on Thesa Station to survive, for getting lost alone is a death sentence. Luckily, those separated from the group can happen upon guiding lights Magda has planted throughout the tundra. These blue-white sparks cause frostbite if handled recklessly, but they also serve as directional anchors, turning into ghostly flames that lead lost souls back to the path to Nadril. The trek through the storm will be no mean feat and will last for the better part of three days. By the time the refugees reach Nadril's gate, most will find themselves exhausted and running on fumes. As the snowstorm dies away and a gap in the glittering forcefield around the city opens to usher the refugees inside, it's clear that Nadril is a different beast. A WARM(?) WELCOME     I. Despite the unforgiving journey, entering Nadril is painless. Once inside, characters will be greeted by their predecessors: the original refugees who made this advanced city. They'll immediately be offered medical attention, as well as warm cider and blankets. But it's obvious that the Nadril citizens prefer higher tech to fend off the weather: they also offer wristlets and ear cuffs that that double as mittens and earmuffs by creating warm bubbles of air. The earrings also feature a few quality of life programs, such as timed alarms and thought-to-speech messaging. However, both programs are in beta stages so it's not unusual for a stray thought to accidentally slip through or an alarm to accidentally ring at an inopportune time. II. Refugees are offered free lodging in a large, crystalline building crafted from ice. Despite the coarse building material, the ice is unmelting and surprisingly well-insulated, and the beds are as warm and cozy. The rooms are, however, small. The sleeping quarters house two people, and are some cross between an igloo and a capsule hotel. Though built for efficiency over comfort, all rooms are also outfitted with the latest Nadril AI, RoboAlfred, or Ralf for short. This helpful program is installed in practically all the furnishings: the closet tells guests to bundle up, the bathroom sink reminds them to brush their teeth, and the mirror offers helpful fashion tips. Ralf's personality matrix still needs polish, though: it may very well insult your clothes and passively-aggressively question your lifestyle choices for the entire stay. III. Though not as advanced as Thesa Station, the colony has technology far beyond the rest of the continent, such as rudimentary AIs and mechanical transportation. Nadril's skyline is a point of pride — refugees can take a (literal) lightrail that gives an aerial view of the colony, which is hewn almost entirely from ice and rock. Despite its tech, Nadril is much more sparsely populated than Olympia and Wyver, and its residents stay near a central hub: a Natha refugee drop ship, Central, which has crashed and long embedded itself into the earth. Central is similar to an older, smaller, grounded model of Thesa Station, in functional order with round-the-clock solar power. Within Central are lounges similar to ones on the Station, though many of the damaged areas have been converted. They include repair stations, different wings dedicated to science, botany, astrology, and mechanics, and a research and history facility, which has a smattering of technology from planets beyond El Nysa — including your own. The staff here don't mind if anything is sampled and studied, but objects cannot be taken from the labs. IV. On the outskirts of the central hub, many will find several curious looking bots with insect-like wings perched about high traffic walkways. Simply passing the bots will cause a dizzying flash before a series of photos print out. Upon closer inspection, people will find that these images reflect stills taken from their home worlds as they remember it. Unfortunately, these photos only last a couple of hours at best. At that time, they will revert back to regular pictures of the refugees. People will be encouraged to share these images of their worlds. The residents of Nadril comprehend the value of remembering one's origins, and will be pleased to see that people still hold memories of old homes close to them. RECREATION IN NADRIL     I. Small, mechanical creatures scampering through the city are a common sight. Ask anyone, and they’ll tell you that they come from a shop called Paws About Town. They’re very useful, as companions, gophers, and couriers (though the more mischievous will note that they’re just small enough to keep tabs on people without being noticed). Premade robotic pets are available on display inside the shop. They come in all shapes, but small sizes; one may be able to find robots that even look like miniature creatures from their homeworld. These are a part of a new, highly customizable line with programmable personalities. Customers have the chance to take pets for a one-day trial run. Those who don’t know how to program may want to enlist more knowledgeable aid, but the pets come with instructional pamphlets for basic personality traits such as obedience, helpfulness, playfulness, and bloodthirst. For returns, the switch to wipe the robot's personality to a blank slate is on the back of its neck, right between a switch to invert all traits, and a switch to have them learn by observing. Try not to press the wrong switch — you might wind up with a pet with a mind of its own! II. A. The Frosty Tap Cantina is a thriving hub of activity, but one of the major draws is the self-service bar: molecular mixology is wildly popular here. Playing with drink compositions can be a game in and of itself, and newcomers to the cantina will find that the bartender — a cheerful woman with lilac skin and three eyes — is always happy to give them a few tips on how to use the wide array of tools within reach of the barstools. All manner of drinks are possible — from glowing, layered cocktails, to clear drinks with colored, spherical bubbles and vividly-colored shots that give off their own smoke. There's a nightly contest in the cantina for the most creative drink created by a team — this may be as good a time as any to partner up with someone and see what can you come up with. Winner gets all their drinks for the night free! And, hey, even if you don't win, you get to drink whatever you make. The well-lubricated patrons of the bar are eager to challenge anyone nearby to a different sort of drinking game… Just how well can you hold your liquor? B. Holo-screens in the cantina are nearly always broadcasting some match or another of a game that looks very much like hockey, albeit played with sticks that light up and a puck that changes shape from time to time. Colonists here merely refer to the game as "the sport," and one of their favored pastimes is betting. However, they don't use currency — they wager dares. Nadril colonists are a tough, weathered lot, and they prefer to speak with actions over silver. Colonists will urge the refugees to take part as well. Common dares range from the ridiculous (lead a sing-a-long, attempt to make someone with a poker face smile) to the suggestive (kiss the person in the cantina you find most attractive, strip off a piece of clothing), to the outright reckless (venture out into the snow for a certain amount of time, and no one will judge if you find some company to keep warm). The colonists are unfazed by even the most insane or tawdry of dares — but you'll certainly be called a killjoy for refusing too often! Why not grab a friend and give it a whirl, or challenge a rival to a dare yourself? THE MISSION     I. On the outskirts of Nadril is the communications tower of the old refugees. This is where Magda resides, monitoring Nadril's technological protections, the extent of the Natha’s influence, and running his own personal projects for El Nysa’s technological advancement. It is isolated, filled with research labs and relics of the past refugees who have come to El Nysa — a living mausoleum of worlds swallowed up by the Storm whose peoples have refused to forget where they came from. Crew photos line the walls of the tower: pictures of alien families and friends, the refugees who came to Nadril before you. Each group of photos gradually becomes smaller in number, and the most recent of the pictures are from half a century ago. Magda's picture can be found among the first group of refugees, an unusually small cluster of photos dating back centuries in El Nysa's past. I have been on this planet for nearly two centuries. Life has come, evolved, and collided in an ever expanding culture. But Darma fears interference, and made this place a prison, with she our warden, stifling the growth of the creatures native to this world rather than encouraging them to flourish. She sent you here for answers in her stead because she knows I'll spurn her, and after seeing what that fool Raysc has wrought, I'll give you them — not for Darma's sake, but because I trust after all the Natha have done to you, you'll understand my decision. Mistakes were made, and I won't hide them. You've made it here so there's some mettle to you, and unlike the Orbiters, I'm not interested in hiding the secrets of the dangers we face. I gave Raysc what he needed to keep his actions hidden from Darma's eyes — what he needed to advance the primitive magics the Natha had doomed him to. It was old Natha tech, Darma's very own used against her. Hilarious, isn't it? Raysc learned of Nadril, and like you, braved the snow to find his way here. He proved his worth and his determination, and he spoke of a brighter future, El Nysa coming into its own, its people realizing their true potential, unhindered by the shackles that had been put upon them. I believed him. He had vision — or so I thought. In truth, he was a fool. A madman. He wasted the opportunity I gave him on his petty vengeance. But not everyone on this planet is such an idiot. Surely you lot aren't. The Natha are hiding things from us — about the Storm, about everything. And here in Nadril, we're going to find all those secrets. What's it going to be? Will you help us, or are you going to stay obedient dogs on Darma's leash? Magda isn't too talkative yet; after all, the new flock of refugees may just be here as eyes and ears for the Orbiters. But what he has said leaves you with plenty to talk about, and if you can earn his trust by helping out around Nadril, he doubtless has a great deal more to reveal. II. Central isn't the only Natha ship that made its way to El Nysa — another, crashed just outside Nadril's borders, is little more than a junk heap. It's here that you'll find the spare parts Darma asked you to retrieve for Thesa Station. What remains of the ship's hull serves as a windbreak, and snow has built up against it, turning the piles of old Natha tech inside into something of a snowy morass. Holes in the deck offer would-be scavengers passage to the ship's innards, barely illuminated with flickering lights — the tech is old, but hardy enough to withstand a crash landing, the severe weather, and the passage of centuries. Deep in the wreck are the remains of living quarters, research labs, VR arenas, mecha bays, cafeterias, and a host of other rooms, many of which may seem familiar from Thesa Station, albeit with a decidedly older feel to what remains of the smooth curves and sleek surfaces of the Natha architecture. Most of the ship's systems are damaged and the technology is nonfunctional, but that just means there's plenty of spare parts to be found. The wreck isn't in the best shape, its structural integrity damaged, and the drifting snow threatens to block off exit routes. Be careful while exploring and be sure to bring a partner. As it turns out, Darma isn't the only one interested in the wreck — Magda is also eager to get his hands on Natha technology. In his own way of taking some responsibility for Raysc, he's asking scavengers to bring him parts, muttering about seeing what he can do about Ysverai's curse. Bring him anything that looks useful, and he may have a chance to succeed, though whether he'll be more effective than the Natha Orbiters is up for debate... FINAL OOC NOTES     An AC-eligible thread with a new character as a participant for 2 NADRIL REP POINTS may be submitted from this log. SUBMIT THE THREAD HERE BY AUGUST 5TH, 11:59 PM EST. As always, feel free to create your own prompts and explore the Nadril location page! There are a variety of activities made available, including fishing and cave exploration! Please direct questions to the questions thread below! Thank you! QUICK NAV premise ● faq ● lore ● map ● npcs taken ● atp/emp ● application ● rep/acp calendar ● hiatus/drops ● modbox [ FULL NAVIGATION ] elnysa nysalogs nysaisles nysaooc elnyan

Comments

[illuminating]

I don't feel that's anything for you to be sorry for, [this reply, with her closed eyes, her cheek pressed against his shoulder. While he's spoken to her, she's let one, settling, enormous sigh, and planted herself beside him. She may have no complete understanding of what it means to be a human, but she at least doesn't stray, for whatever that's worth.]

Better you try to untangle knots in your heart than to let them tighten. If I'm lousy at this, it's because this is the first in awhile I've been capable of conversation. [Weary thing yawns in spite of herself.] And it was different... before. There were urgent matters that kept me from curling up with man. I was never meant to stay on earth, as it was, so I suppose... had I accomplished things, I would've returned home.

One thing I do know is that to be human means to grow continuously, and to have the right and space for such capacity. Sometimes, I think I formed with no voice so I wouldn't interfere in that. I'm old, but there's a lot I don't understand, but I'm still happy if you can confide in me. Please don't let it make you feel worse if my intentions have trouble finding you, Ren. I want you to feel well, and sleep well, and meet people you can form good connections with.

[baldesion]

[How is she feeling? Spent, largely, despite managing to keep a bit of balance and not just giving in to further sleep.]

Exhausted.

[Ordinary Krile would be reluctant to admit this. However, the evidence is strongly against convincing Claire of anything else.]

I don't...remember arriving.

[jesus_is_gundam]

[Now that he's has to think about it....]

Not really. I'm not a very good cook. [He's not bad, mind you, but you can find better food out there.] The food in Wyver was okay.

[Before that, in his home universe, he was spending a lot of time in space, and its really hard to have a home-cooked meal there. You really don't want to set fire to things when you have a very limited amount of oxygen available to you. His choices usually amounted to glorified microwave dinners, or field rations.]

[reek]

[ He doesn’t have the deep connection to wolves that the Starks do, but he doesn’t need it to understand. She’s her own creature who has no obligation to him, and if she didn’t wish to help, she could just as easily leave him there to continue his struggle alone. ]

Thank you.

[ His voice has grown just as frail as he has, a rasp that’s all but lost on the wind. He steadies himself and begins his trek once more, focused on his footing so he doesn’t have to rely on Ammy for support more often than necessary. He does glance at her once, aware of her behavior and where her attention seems to be. ]

A lot of them have returned to stasis.

[ Even as changed as he is, he’s still hurt and abandoned. Each time another person he dares to get close to returns to sleep, he aches more for it. It hardly seems fair that he asked for Robb and instead he got Ramsay. ]

Most haven’t returned.

[sweetwater]

What would have really lowered my chances of hypothermia was not dropping me into a nightmarish storm, days away from where I needed to be.

[ she exhales. yes, she does plan to be mad about their journey for a while. ] And, what? You're such a grateful guest that you'll be writing thank you notes?

[reek]

You know I don’t want to.

[ The only reason he’s making this trudge through the snow is because he’s stubborn. Too stubborn to die by any means but a sword and too afraid he'll botch the job if he does it on his own. ]

And that makes me weak.

[dancerefresher]

[FRESH WHAT?!?!?!?!?]

Well, it's more...f-for others? I CAN dance with others, I know dances that require many people! Plays too!

B-but getting watched while I practice...

I don't want people to see all the stumbling and mistakes I make in the rehearsal. Does-does that make sense?

[She's being difficult and she knows it.]

[baldesion]

Unfortunately, I haven't any spells to warm you properly, though if you're frostbitten I might be able to help.

[Never mind whether or not she should. A little spell won't wear her out too much.]

Could you not use your communication device to reach her? [It took a while for her to stop referring to it as a linkpearl despite its many dissimilar features.]

[dancerefresher]

Really...?

[Both about his cooking and the Wyver food. Which...who knew if it would ever be the same after this.]

The food in Wyver. What's it like? Is it...s-spicy?

[icingonthecake]

She actually looks surprised for a moment when he says she looks fancy, and he's sure he has to be imagining it. Dogs don't really have facial expressions like people do, right?

Holding the jerky out, he smiles encouragingly, and is then plainly startled when she refuses the offering. He's not sure he's ever met a dog that refused a handout, especially a meaty one.

"You're an odd one, aren't'cha?" he says, but there's no indictment in his tone. He can see she wants the jerky--there's a longing in her eyes that any dog would have when faced with a treat--but she won't take it. She seems to want him to keep it, which is sweet, he guesses, but... well he hadn't really considered that a dog could be that considerate.

He rubs his chin with his free hand, then grins.

"All right, how 'bout we split it, then?" he asks, breaking the jerky piece in two. He pops half into his mouth and then offers the other half to her again. "Go on, then; I'm not gonna starve, cross my heart."

[nineteenfortyfive]

[She knows. She trusts him enough to know he won't do anything foolish in that regard, but the knowledge alone always weighs heavy on her heart. She knows what it is to be that defeated.]

That doesn't make you weak. [Uneven ground beneath the snow has her wobbling for a moment, but that's all it is.] We can argue about this the whole way to the city, you know. Might warm us up.

[reek]

[ He very nearly laughs. Am I happy now? I would much rather have all my teeth. I would be happier for that.

He merely shoots a sidelong glance at Jon instead, his mouth set in a firm, unsmiling line. He recalls exchanges during their attempts to bring down the dragon, but Jon had never gone into further detail. They’re in for a long trek, especially with Theon’s slower gait. He wonders if now might not be the best time to press for information. ]

Tell me true. Would you have been there if Jeyne and I had made it to the Wall?

[icingonthecake]

"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to," he says with a snort of laughter. Short-sighted or just plain stupid doesn't really matter so much when you're dead anyway. "The dragons here are kind of like... sacred-ish, though," he adds then. "There's like a whole team of knights or somesuch who ride 'em, which is kinda cool. Not sure I'd want that to be my main method of travel, but it's cool nonetheless."

He regards Yoshiko a moment, then says curiously, "You seem remarkably unfazed by this." The frozen time, the zombie dragon, the whole... being spirited away to another universe thing. "Do you travel between worlds back home, too?"

She seems young, but... well, Sora's pretty young, too. Age doesn't seem to have significant bearing on one's ability to pull crazy stunts and save the world.

[inaurare]

Oh--

[that makes him chuckle a little more, shaking his head lightly]

I think we shall hold off of the demonstration...!

[illuminating]

[With a satisfied sigh, she plunks down beside him, unceremoniously. Her disposition suddenly indolent, despite her manner of speaking.

Her thoughts ask him:] What else has caught your eye, the tech around this place? Tell me about it, please. I know very, very little, but you know, when I overheard what they said the ear cuffs could do, I about knocked the poor man over, I almost swallowed mine. I don't know why I thought if I grabbed it I could put it on myself. Most likely, I wasn't thinking... He still helped me, even though I couldn't keep myself from jumping on him, wasn't that kind?

[Physically, she's silent as ever, save for her groaning huffs, and her wallowing on her back, unruffled by the cold, practically relishing in the calmer cool now that they're here and not in that battering wind. As ever, she isn't inclined to keep herself from natural, lupine tendencies, and she's... a ridiculous display, slide-scooting across the ground to rub her own back, tossing her legs, and passersby either look unsure about the pair, or shake their head at them with a little smile. Because honestly, who wouldn't be charmed by a raccoon and a wolf catching up? This is some The Dodo shit.]

[icingonthecake]

"Oh, it was a ton of fun," he said with a laugh. "Least 'til someone tripped and ate some pavement. One guy I knew chipped a tooth once, but he didn't let it bother him. He used to drink soda and then squirt it through the gap at us after that."

When the other man claps him on the shoulder, Axel realizes just how... large this guy is. Axel's used to being taller than most people at just over six feet, but this guy has a couple inches and definitely at least fifty or sixty pounds on him. Probably more, he's built like a truck. Axel is grateful, and a little surprised, that the man at least seems aware enough of his stature to not be friendly so hard as to send him flying across the room.

He laughs sincerely.

"You sound like you're hoping for it," he says, and then offers his hand. "I'm Axel, by the way," he says. "Are you new? I feel like I definitely would have seen you around if you'd been here a while." He's kind of hard to miss.

[conqueredhearts]

Oh? Until we're truly alone?

[Well now he's just playfully teasing him. But really he can hardly help himself. He enjoys seeing Linneus smile and laugh too much. So honestly he would say he's providing a good distraction from whatever has distressed the pretty man. Since he doesn't know the cause obviously this is the best course of action.]

[godslay]

[ Gamora should likely be more respectful than she is in that moment; while she doesn't take the pictures, she looks over to see what Richie reveals. The second makes as little sense to her as the first, but she does recognize a dead, rotted body (the size of a child, surrounded by children).

(Standing over bodies just as small as her own, pools of blood that soak her bare feet, yellow and blue on her knife and her hands, finding them days later when the jungle heat has bloated the flesh eroded away by the alien maggots burrowed into their skin, and that was her, this was all her, she did this—)

She snaps to attention with the third photograph. She sees the image of the man in the tub, his wrists slashed open, and— is this worse? Better? How does this horror stand up against the scenes in Richie's other photos? Gamora remembers in her childhood, there were some children discovered in similar positions, because some couldn't handle the fear and pain, and rather than wait to be picked off, they—

It's Richie's reaction that alarms her the most, how he can't tear his eyes from the gore, and he chokes on his own air, his own words. ]

Rich.

[ She doesn't say it with the same edge of before, and she doesn't reach out to snatch away the photo; she sets a hand at his forearm, tries to push it down, to break that invisible string tying Richie's eyes to the bloodied corpse. ]

[icingonthecake]

Well, to be fair, their overlapping franchise themes do seem a bit more lenient with what sort of outward appearances indicate hooliganism.

Axel laughs. "You think so?" he asks, flipping a stray spike of hair back away from his face in a deliberately dramatic fashion. He certainly did his share of unkind things while working for the Organization, but it's true he never really enjoyed them. He was never particularly cut out to be a villain, he thinks. He waves a hand then. "Ah, don't mention it," he says. "Everybody's new at one point, right? No sense bein' a jerk to somebody without getting to know 'em first. Better to have been nice to a jerk you can be a counterjerk to later than be a jerk to a nice person and never get the chance to redeem yourself, says I."

Luna's expression sobers as she speaks then, and when she trails off, Axel just nods.

"I'll drink to that," he says, holding the cider up in something like a toast. He hums in thought then. "Well, I mean... it hasn't been all bad," he says. "I've met some good people, made a few good friends, had some interesting adventures." He scratches the back of his head. "Don't put me down for fighting undead dragon gods a second time, but... in general it's been not awful." He grins at her. "Actually my best friend from home just came out of stasis a couple days ago," he says, and normally he wouldn't get so personal with someone he'd known for less than half an hour, but he's just so sincerely elated to have Roxas back that he kind of wants to tell the whole universe about it. "I hadn't seen him for a while, even back home," he says. "We'd kinda parted on rough terms, so... getting the chance to reconcile..." He shakes his head. "I think I can forgive anything else the Natha may be responsible for inflicting on us, for that."

[inaurare]

[the teasing has the desired affect, at least, more laughter with a little duck of his head]

No, no, I believe you can. So I don't believe I shall need the demonstration now...

[inaurare]

If you're sure...

[one hand reaches to his lapel as if to touch the little pin... then he realises the mittens on his hands and lowers them again]

Mmm, more warm than hot. [he certainly wouldn't go so far as to say tropical...!] Sometimes the nights would grow chilly but it was usually bearable if one stayed indoors. Winters were colder, but it was still unusual to have snow.

[revlon]

[ She did notice; it's her job to notice, and even then, she knows him. But he doesn't seem to remember that she knows what he did to Howard, too. She learned of it last year and from Steve, at that. She'd needed time, then — she didn't blame Bucky for it, aware of what HYDRA had done to his mind, but it had been a painfully difficult pill to swallow and sometimes she thinks its still caught in her throat.

She hasn't forgotten, but in her mind, Howard Stark is still alive and well. He's up in stasis, for Christ's sake. But it's a miserable thing in the air between them so she doesn't pursue it for both their sakes. ]

Colour me suitably impressed, [ she teases, taking the accepted arm as they cross the room. ] Was buttering me up part of your dare?

[ As if she doesn't know he is, indeed, a Perfect Gentleman. ]

[conqueredhearts]

Here I was hoping to have an excuse to have a closer look at that beautiful face.

[Laughing, he rests a hand on his head to give his hair a rub.]

Ah well. I'll have to find other excuses now.

[icingonthecake]

Well, tropical can still get snow like on mountains and stuff, sheesh. He's just trying to make conversation, why you gotta be like that Riku.

Axel looks a little wistful then.

"We didn't get many storms on Radiant Garden," he says, a bit surprised at how easy it is to say it. He's never been very good at talking about home, but since discussing it with Riku before, even just a little, it feels easier. "We got sun and rain and wind and snow, sometimes ice, but actual thunderstorms were pretty uncommon."

When Riku brings up snowball fights, Axel shoots him a sly look at the same time Riku shoots him a withering glare, and the redhead laughs brightly and reaches over to clap Riku on the shoulder.

"Aw, come on," he says, "don't'cha trust me even a little?" He waves a hand. "Snowball fights are only fun when you can easily go back inside and warm up with some cocoa right away," he assures him. "In this weather, a snowball fight would just... be more of the weather."

Once we get to town, though, this truce may or may not hold.

[jesus_is_gundam]

Some of it. They use a lot of fruit to season everything.

[He speaks in the present tense, even though he knows that the part of the Wyvern jungle that wasn't burned down by the dragon likely rotted to death under its curse.]

Can you cook?