EVENT ★ BACK TO THE FUTURE

[futurologists]

BENDED TIME As outlined in the OOC post, things start to slow down and grow quiet in Oska for a few days as the bugs crawl away and slowly disappear. But then the cocoons hatch. Fully grown temporal insects claw their way out of them, each about the size and temperament of raging bulls. They come out far more aggressive and eager to fight, are are willing to take on anything that moves with jaws and claws alike. Except, of course, another insect — when two of them encounter each other, they enter into a mating dance and then slip away into another dimension, leaving behind only the temporary ghosts of years gone by. If you can’t find a way to pierce that thick shell to take one down, better find another one to pair it off with instead. Just try not to get bit while leading them around and find yourself suddenly 5 years old again. The insects aren’t the only thing going on in Oska, though. As it turns out, unicorns really hate this adult form of the temporal insects, and will start kicking their way out of their stalls in the stables to get at the insects in an attempt to impale or trample them. According to Uruz they’re gallant warriors, but not always quite cut out to take on a bug, and can easily get themselves hurt or killed. She would really appreciate recruits taking a moment to recapture any stray unicorns they may come across and leading them back to the stables. Try to avoid any insects on the way, or you’ll find yourself suddenly fighting insect and irate unicorn, which is no one’s idea of a good time. The lake is getting more active, too. All the fighting has woken up something in the depths of it. Dark red tentacles sometimes creep up onto shore — and don’t worry, this time they don’t belong to a sea goddess. The tentacles don’t attack unless attacked, and can in fact be quite agreeable. Nodes along the length of them act as primitive eyes, which see well enough to interact with anyone nearby. They’re also all a little peckish. Toss a tentacle a bit of food and watch it curl around and ingest it using tiny mouths on the underside. It might even be willing to play a few rounds of fetch or slap a bug into the sky for you if you put it in a good mood with a morsel of food. The senior ALASTAIR members can be seen out and about and doing their part, too. Uruz and Dagny fight as a team, centaur and elf, sometimes fighting back to back and sometimes as mount and rider. They’ll stop and lend a hand, but the cats are a little less generous. Cherenkov and Crowley fight inseparably and use magic and science in deadly combination to ward off and destroy the bugs, but can usually only be seen darting on their way from one place to another. They have a lot of magitek to repair in the destructive wake of the insects. Pomarr, neither as senior nor as invested in actively picking off the bugs, offers shelter near a tentacle-free portion of the lake, calling down storms to toss away bugs for her and anyone in the vicinity. OOC NOTES This log spans a week ICly. Characters will find themselves beginning to understand each other again as the bugs first vanish, as the effects of the cats’ work on the magitek pays off. The translation problem will be completely fixed by the time the cocoons hatch. All of the bugs will have been killed or shipped off by the sixth day, leaving the last day before their departure to the next mission blissfully relaxing. Any temporally misplaced recruits will be back to normal by the last day, as well. A reminder to anyone still texting: the texting feature of magitek jewelry operates based on thought! There are no physical keyboards, recruits merely think the message that they’d like to send to another recruit.

Comments

tentacles

[heelies]

[For all the grandeur of the castle, with its vaulted ceilings and wide corridors, still it becomes too claustrophobic for one who has not lived indoors in all of the past year. The wild freedom of Mount Pelion beats still in Achilles' heart: for this he aches, and for the quiet warmth of Chiron's guidance, but most of all for the steady assurance of Patroclus' companionship. Thus he passes the time exploring the castle grounds and especially the forest which stretches on toward the horizon. Not only are the insidious insects far sparser at the castle's outskirts, but here he is better able to breathe: his lungs swell to fill his chest and so too does his heart. Around the lake Achilles runs laps to test the boundaries of his godlike speed, which has long been a favorite sport of his. By the shore he sees a man sprawled out in the sun, his skin glistening for the water beaded there, and as his course brings him nearer to this man he slows his pace. It is at this point that the stranger casts his glare upon him, and Achilles now halts in his step. His voice comes quietly but without trace of shyness.] I meant not to bother you. [His shoulders are squared and his chin held level, his impeccable posture bespeaking instruction in manners or perhaps confidence which he knew instinctively for it came part and parcel with his divine blood. Yet his manner of dress lends no hint of grandeur, nor conjures images of his father's noble house: the tunic he wears, while finely made, boasts no intricate designs in its weave, and he wears it unpinned from his shoulders to leave bare his chest. On his feet can be found no sandals, only a layer of dirt kicked up from his expeditions across the castle grounds. He appears to fit in well with the natural landscape, no more out of place than a fish darting through a stream.]

LOOK HOW SMOL

[dishearten]

( didn't mean to bother him. the Huntsman frowns and a muscle jumps in his jaw, his annoyance apparent without him saying a word. it goes to suit that even this far out of the way, he couldn't find any solitude... though he darkly supposes that a younger human is at least less aggravating than older ones. he's not been around children enough to really know what they're like, though perhaps they've not learned the cruelty and selfishness of the older ones. it's not a lofty mark to hit, though. )

Surely not.

( he thinks if that were true, the boy wouldn't be bothering him, he'd have just kept on his way and that would have been the end of it. it seems foreign to imagine Achilles might be trying to make amends, considering no human he's ever met has bothered to apologize to him. the Huntsman glances over just long enough to ascertain his company isn't a threat before he goes back to trying to bandage his arm.

it's awkwardly placed, to tie up himself. he doesn't ask for help, though — he's never gotten help from anyone but the wolves, he knows better than to expect it from a stranger. even a young one. )

excuse u he is almost a man !!

[heelies]

[He frowns for this stranger's curt treatment, yet still he tries coolly polite words.] I wished only to run around this lake, just as you perhaps wished to lie beside it, and so crossed our paths. Thus it is neither my fault nor yours - that is simply the way it is. [His gaze has by now fallen to the man's arm which he tries to bandage.] You are wounded. It must be those monstrous insects that preyed upon you, was it not? Here, let me help - I have been learning the art of medicine from Chiron, the noblest of centaurs. I have not any salves our poultices with me, and the plants that grow in this land are foreign to me yet, but at the very least I can make certain your arm is properly bandaged. [So speaking, he tentatively steps closer. He knows not why this man despises him so despite having just met, and he begins to wonder if he might loathe all company. It seems to Achilles a terribly lonely way to live.]

emphasis on ALMOST

[dishearten]

( he doesn't need an explanation of how two people could randomly meet, Achilles! the fact is, the boy didn't do anything in particular to bother him. he just automatically distrusts anyone that walks on two feet, and the irony of being one of those is incredibly lost on him. perhaps he should be a little more self aware, that he often takes on too many of the traits he so despises.

the offer surprises him, considering he has not found many humans to be particularly considerate of his injuries. he wears his confusion on his face, and he has to fight past it to even answer. )

How did you come to learn from a centaur?

( it is a difficult thing to offer trust to a human, when he's never met one deserving before. still, he does cautiously extend his arm to the stranger boy, though he doesn't relax his posture in the slightest. he can't trust completely in an instant. )

sorry for the wait

[heelies]

[He kneels now beside the stranger and gently he cradles his arm that he may inspect it closely.] My father respects Chiron very much, for once he saved my father's life. They share in the bond of friendship, and thus worthy Peleus was granted this favor, that of my education by one so wise and skilled. [He has taken up the bandages with which the stranger had set to wrapping his wounds, but he pauses as the fabric passes through his hands. At present he looks to the man.] Are these the bandages you used before? You ought to use clean ones, that your wound may more quickly heal. Here-- [Speaking thus, Achilles pulls free the excess fabric of his tunic from his belt which gather it around his waist. There it is quite clean, folded away from dust and the sweat of his skin.] Have you a knife?

no worries... since i made u wait longer, cries quietly

[dishearten]

( the huntsman had figured them clean enough, though arguably they're not sanitary, either. he's from a world were such niceties aren't really at the height of concern, and for a man that lives in the woods in the company of wolves, sanitation is a rather foreign concept. he watches silently, perhaps sullenly, seeing surprisingly little of himself in the boy in his company, though he couldn't be more than a handful of years his elder.

a knife? certainly he does, though he doesn't intend to hand it over to someone he doesn't trust, especially when he's already injured. when it's clear what achilles intends, he simply reaches over and rips the fabric easily. there, no knife needed. )

Your father gave you to centaurs for a life debt? ( this sounds a bit bizarre to the huntsman, honestly, though it doesn't surprise him that humans would give away those in their number. they find possession when there is no place for it, they own land, they own water, why not each other as well? )

we got this

[heelies]

[He looks surprised for the suddenness with which the stranger tears free the fabric of his tunic, but he accepts the woolen strip wordlessly. The state of the garment concerns him little, for he needs nothing fine when he makes his home from the forest. Somewhere in the far reaches of his mind he wonders when he shall return to the wilds of Mount Pelion: although he knows the fathomless distance which stretches between this land and fertile Phthia, it is an unwieldy thought around which to wrap his mind, and he cannot help but assume that his father shall rescue him from this predicament sooner or later. However, his expression soon sours for the implications of the man's words, and Achilles is quick to give retort.] I am the son of Peleus, not his slave which he may gift another. Upon Mount Pelion I shall not make my home forever - indeed there shall come a day when I must return to my father's noble house. Do not be mistaken, therefore. [So speaking, he sets to bandaging the wound. How he wishes that he had with him just a fraction of the salves which Chiron keeps in his stores, but he supposes that fresh bandages are better than nothing at least.]

[dishearten]

( the Huntsman has wondered how he will return to his woods and his pack as well. he little understands how he came to this place, and the magic that wrought it. that makes it ever more difficult to return, though he is a stubborn creature and will find a way to get back to the only family he's known one way or another. this feat might be easier if he trusted anyone enough to ask them where exactly he was, but he was quite a ways from that, despite his willingness to let the boy help him tie up his arm. )

If someone else chooses where you go and where you do not, have you not been given?

( see, this shit right here is why the Huntsman has no friends. as far as he is concerned, there is no right to give one person into the ownership of another, just as there was no right to feel ownership over animals. that didn't seem to keep humans from doing it, though, with their kings and their queens and their lessers, handmaidens and servants and peasants and worse. )

Think as you like. It seems little different to me.

[heelies]

[Having finished wrapping the wound and tying off the bandages, Achilles now pushes the stranger's arm away with little of the gentleness that a man of medicine might exact. For all his talk of soon becoming a man, he lacks the restraint to refrain from such childish and petty indulgences as lashing his frustrations upon another.] If always your tongue is so rude, than I should not be surprised if your father once chose to give you away for another man to take, that he might have peace again in his house. [This insult crackles from his tongue as if sparked by his indignation. He forgets that he ought not address a stranger in so rude a manner, for however unkind this man has been he is his elder still. Then just as now he cares more for his pride than for manners.]

[dishearten]

( the Huntsman seems little repelled by the insult, attention first going to the bandage. the truth is it is better done, neater and cleaner, than he could have managed on his own. the boy likely deserves a word of thanks, instead of a blunt tongue with no mind to easing the bitterness of his words. while he has not gone out of his way to insult, it seems the truth is not always well received to those that did not seek to hear it. or, perhaps he should reflect on his truth not being as universal as he seems to think.

he turns his attention back to the clearly annoyed boy, holding his arm to his chest. the pain was still present, despite the bandage, yet he'd lived worse. )

My father left me to the wolves before I had the wits to be rude. I found them to be more compassionate company than humans. It seems little has changed. ( honestly, it could have been his father, or his mother. the Huntsman doesn't recall his human family, any more than he remembers the name he must have been given. what he does remember is the cruelty of humans, and even young ones were easily laced toward insult and anger. ) Perhaps you find my words rude because you do not care for the truth in them.

[heelies]

[His eyebrows lift in surprise upon this revelation so curious that it seems as if the stuff of stories. Quite suddenly he makes clearer sense of the stranger, yet in his ire Achilles cares little for what has shaped this man: it matters only that his treatment is unwarranted.] What know you of the ways of men, you who have lived only among the wolves? You know nothing of my noble father and his valorous deeds, and yet you would presume yourself privy to all his intentions, as seers are privy to the minds of the gods. Furthermore, you would deny that just lately I dressed your wound in clean bandages torn from mine own tunic - or is this not compassion? Thus it is you who cares not for the truth. [He now rises to his feet, and although his stature is not yet so grand, his eyes cut fiercely nonetheless and his shoulders are wreathed in pride as palpable as a mantle that might drape him.]

[dishearten]

I was raised by wolves, that does not mean I have no awareness of humans. ( he's walked among them, he's seen the worst so often that he's come to distrust the best. the boy has him truly on ignoring the compassion of helping to fix his wound, and perhaps the huntsman realizes as much. he realizes, yet doesn't lend much in the way of an apology. )

We're a matched pair, then, are we not? Ignorant and blissfully so. ( he reaches for a tunic he's abandoned in sand to pull back over his head. he's had more than enough yawning on about Noble Fathers. if the boy does not care to abandon the lakefront the Huntsman will abandon it himself. surely his brother is about in the forest somewhere, he'd be better company than the one he currently boasts. )