epidemiology | PLAYER EVENT ★ HELIOLOGY

PLAYER EVENT ★ HELIOLOGY

INTRODUCTION.

It's difficult to tell time without the presence of a sun or moon. There are no stars. The world is in constant blackness, the heavens barely visible from below and the only light artificial. It's been like this for months.

Suddenly, those who expressed interest in observing the sun (or lack thereof) will all at once receive a text message on their ALASTAIR jewellery from 82736775:

Get your shit and go look at the sky. Now's the time. If you need me, I'm around.

It's time to get to work.

OBSERVATION.

Find the highest point you can and point the telescopes at the sky. Should be easy, right?

Be mindful that there are still guards patrolling the city, looking for escaped prisoners, and some citizens would be very happy to tip them off to your presence. There are still animals in the forests to contend with, and there are still nosey citizens who may ask you too many questions. There are also your fellow ALASTAIR agents, who may not be very willing to share the spot they already staked out before you just showed up.

People and animals aren't all you need to look out for, either. Seven hours after the observation starts, there is a lightning storm. It lasts for 30 minutes, bolts of electricity arcing across the sky. It might be a good idea to scurry down someplace lower when this happens -- you know what they say about lightning and height.

82736775 doesn't contact anyone after the initial text, so observers are free to give up whenever they decide they've been sitting out in the freezing dark for long enough.

[ note: even if you didn't sign up, feel free to tag in! your character won't have a telescope but that doesn't mean they can't mingle. ]

[ previously: ic info | ooc info ]
[ direct questions here! ]

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[Pearl is already looking through her telescope at this point. And she sees a familiar shade of green pass by her lens. Flinching back from it, she hears Peridot's nasal-ly voice and groans in distaste. Great, just what she needs.

She lifts her head. Her right eye bearing a black ring around it.]

What is it Peridot?

[Peridot is about to say something about being a stupid clod, yadda yadda...

And then she sees the black ring. Peridot keeps staring, and then snorts, following that up with a round of uncontrollable laughter.]

WHY'S YOUR FACE EVEN UGLIER THAN NORMAL??

Y-yes. I wasn't sure how powerful it would be, how much it might help, but...I figured it was worth a try at least.

[In any case, it doesn't seem to have done the opposite and made things more difficult. Though she still gets a bit sheepish when others see her using magic. Especially if they are seeing it for the first time, as Julius is, even if she has told him of her magic before. Even that is still something she seems to be adjusting to, after so long operating in secret back home.]

[If Sebastian and Sieglinde are startled by Sakura's presence, that seems nothing in comparison to the other's reaction when she hears the voices, not having quite caught the rustle of the trees to alert her earlier, so concentrated on the telescope as she was.

In fact, it's a near thing that she doesn't drop it, or completely lose her balance on her staff when the two pop up from the higher branches as she starts, all but jumping in surprise.]

H-hoeeeee?! E-eh? Sielginde-chan.....?

[ Oikawa might have found the roof to himself this time around, but all his traipsing around on the tile isn't exactly a subtle venture, not for the other denizens of the top floor anyway. With the thud and creak of footsteps overhead becoming too suspicious to ignore, Sigma swings out of his own window and eyes up the ascent for himself. He can't see anything from here, but... it doesn't look like too bad of a climb. ]

[ So with one less telescope and significantly more upper body strength than the source of the ruckus, Sigma scuffles his own way up the side of the building, propping his chin over the edge of the tile to peer around and spot... Oikawa... With a telescope? ]

What, your window have a bad view of the nothing out tonight?

[What kind of insult was that? Pearl rolls her eyes and crosses her arms.]

Your insults are lacking more than usual.

[She stares at the other Gem dryly.]

What's gotten into you?

[guards soldiered past with eyes and ears turned anything on the vaguest side of suspicious. the land they patrolled the edges of laid right outside a noble's castle, its grounds enshrined in a towering, stone- and iron-built gate; although there was no moon to show off the buildings' impressive spires, lanterns hoisted high in tall windows showed off just how tall the towers went. it would be a good idea to stick to the shadows of the houses just beyond the gate, or the bushes that lined the beginnings of a forest that stretched through the land.]

[after the guards passed by, the clunking armor a distant march, a psstt hissed out from one such hidden bush. if you didn't immediately spring into offensive action, a voice continued in a stage whisper.] Oi! Over here.

[and what was that...? a (mostly - the roots showed black) blond head poked out from a scraggly shrub, hand gesturing for whoever happened to look like they didn't belong to the guards to come closer.]

Hey... [in a voice that totally wasn't sketchy, his other hand raising to show off one funky looking telescope.] How good are you at jumping?

ii.

[somehow, this guy managed to get atop one of the highest spires. the roof was a patchwork of lichen and tile, the air chilly and view unchanging. he was awfully focused on scanning the stars, but after a while - well, you could've hired an ape to do this job, so it wasn't that surprising when he pulled back to glance over at either an accomplice or whoever else had the bright idea of climbing the off-limits castle.]

How many planets do you think this system has...?

[aka this is the cute star-gazing prompt, have at it.]

iii.

[cute star-gazing has to end sometime. and this time, it ends with not a wistful sigh of existential nostalgia, but rather the bang of a lightning storm brewing too close and too suddenly overhead.]

[how Hideyoshi gets from a spire to an extended castle wall, who knows. regardless, it's at the edge of the grounds where he yells down at someone passing by who doesn't look like a guard, a stray rock tossed ahead of where they are (or maybe right top of their head: he had decent aim when it wasn't close to pitch black) to get their attention.]

Hey! Sorry, uh - mind lending a guy a hand?

wildcard.

[leave a blank comment with a prompt or toss over a PM! whatever works will work great.]

[Pearl, herself, was enjoying the stargazing, almost lost in it and nearly forgetting as to why she was out here in the first place. Even if it meant being atop the castle. But Pearl glances to the side to her nearby company and shrugs, looking back towards the clear sky, readjusting her pink scarf around her neck.]

Who knows... Heck, we may even venture into a completely different system in a few months time.

[She folds her hands in her lap, her knees folded underneath her on the roof of this spire.]

We were in a different city before. A land full of dragons. Chantes could reside on a different land mass, or a different universe for all we know, from the previous city we were in.

[It's cute.

It's cute and it's perhaps the first time she's struck him as such. He tugs at the scarf a bit so he can see the rest of her face again, almost boyish in doing so; so pretty, so smooth, so subtly elegant. He doesn't know why she'd ever be self-conscious. She's truly something to be treasured, to be envied, even, befitting the inherent grace of a Gem. He wants to meet the rest, to know if they're all so beautiful. So enrapturing.

As for her question, Gilgamesh knows she deserves more than a throwaway answer. He thinks for a long, hard moment before responding.]

We've survived.

[To live is to accomplish everything. Life was a struggle, painful and unforgiving. So even that much...]

We've survived, and so we continue on. We laugh; we cry; we celebrate; we mourn.

[His fingers sift through the material of the scarf, express turning wistful.]

And this world brought us together. So I've no regrets. As your Servant, I will bring you victory. You need not doubt it.

[How long did Pearl say she'd been on Earth...? Hellboy's face doesn't convey expressions very clearly, but the corners of his mouth turn down. It's pretty clearly a problem.]

The goblins might find it disrespectful. This is their place of worship.

[Gilgamesh's demeanor—for what little can be gleaned from an expressionless ball of light—does not change, hearing his voice and seeing his face. Riku appears to be safe, and this man appears different from the network broadcast. Less arrogant, more teasing, as he continues to fly easy circles around.]

I am a being which thrives off such energy. It sustains me.

[And for all his casual attitude, he's tempted to take a bite, but he refrains. The magic boosts Riku up a little further, spins him about.]

How's that human saying go? "First time for everything"? Unless you're too cowardly...

[These are truly schoolyard tactics. He's challenging him on the basis of being a scaredy-cat.]

Calm yourself, child. This precipitation is of no threat to us.

[Oh, wait. He's talking about that raccoon. Gilgamesh snatches it mid-chase with a bit of levitation magic and...]

[BOOM!]

[...blows it up. Yeah.]

Stupid animal. None shall chase the charge of the great Gilgamesh!

[Pearl inhales sharply, that hand being so close to her face so boldly. When he does tug down that scarf of hers, more of that blue hue can be seen yet again. Her eyes glance from his hand and back up at him, almost looking stubborn, cheeks ballooning.

They survived. Yes, that.. was an accomplishment in itself. Living day to day. And she's made it this far, in the approximate three or so months she's been here.

Pearl sighs heavily through her nostrils before she gently paws his hand away from her scarf, willing herself to float back a little further.]

There's nothing to be won here. We're just under ALASTAIR's thumb at the moment. [Again, she tugs that scarf up, this time, over her nose, her eyes returning to the city below them, framed by her ballet flats.]

We're equals, remember? I don't want to impose upon you in which Gems did to Pearls back on Homeworld. You're not an accessory. You're a person.

[Sure, she may have been on earth that long, but. She didn't really venture out much among humans. She learned about different 'times' within the last twenty years. It wasn't just 'daytime' and 'nighttime'.

Pearl suddenly feels a blue hue rise to her cheeks and she leaps off the top of the church to land near Hellboy, smoothing out the hem of her shirt.]

S-Sorry I had... no idea.

[It's a strange sort of thing to hear, you're a person. For all he knew that to be true, his previous Masters never treated him that way—either he was placed on a pedestal and blindly worshiped or he acted as an accomplice, pulling the strings. In both cases, equality never entered into the equation. Always he sat above, beyond, untouchable.

An other.

Gilgamesh floats back around to her and at once that ancient air is lost; he looks at her with slightly wider eyes, as if she's said something truly jarring. In a sense, it is. He should rip into her for it, tell her they could never function in such a capacity, but...]

Then the same goes for you, does it not?

[...but that comes out instead, gently chiding.]

You are also a person. With thoughts, and feelings, and ambitions. I wish to know them for myself. To be an equal—it means sharing that burden.

[I have only one equal in all the world, he thinks. But somehow his expression betrays him.]

[ thrives... sustains? oh, he's not sure he likes that, but he's pretty sure that he can hold his own.

of course, reason and logic flies out the window-- ]

I'm not scared! There's a job to do, though--I've gotta find the highest place so we can watch this dumb light show.

Besides, I'm not feeling too good about going off with some stranger who eats energy like mine.

[the cold sunk its teeth in before the quiet novelty of observing a different planet's perspective on the universe ran out. one of his hands was buried deep into a warmer pocket, his mittens yet damp from scaling the castle. regardless, he held on to the sketchy, spit-and-glue telescope, panning it across the sky with the patience of someone quite used to sitting in one place for hours at a time.]

[one small, musing noise, and he untucks his chin from his coat long enough to keep talking.]

I've heard a little about that. Kind of bummed I missed dragons, even if they're the people-eating kind.

[people-eating as a general rule wasn't a be-all-end-all reason to not go somewhere, in his highly specific experience. plus, what if some of the dragons were sentient? talking with a dragon would've been awesome.]

[though, now he has to wonder.]

How did the transfer go? [curiously, eyes drifting back to the pink haired and pink scarfed stargazer.] From the dragon's land to Chantes, I mean.

Before bedtime? [ —Sion echoes softly, for while he'd taken notice of her from afar as she'd dismounted her perch, planting her feet sturdy and well upon the ground, he isn't certain if she's taken notice of him in turn. But then again, he sorely doubts his presence might startle her—if anything at all, she's likely to be vexed even as he bows his head in greeting, expression warming with a smile. ] Isn't it after it, already? Your yawn, Lady Alice, was rather impressive to behold.

[ Truly so! And how could it not have been endearing, with the way she's bundled up in a blanket of blue? In contrast, Sion is underdressed for the weather, bereft of a coat, his only winter-proof garments a pair of fingerless gloves and matching scarf. ]

Shall I escort you home, then? We are very much in the midst of a storm.

I'm a Gem. But... yes the same idea applies.

[She was her own Gem. Rose Quartz helped her see that. She learned how to fight, how to build things, all on her own! Pearl rubs at her arms with a small shrug.]

We're working alongside each other. And plus, as times goes on... maybe you'll find out more about me.

[Pearl wasn't very open about her past. Not even to Steven, who knew her his whole life. And yet, he only knew the tip of the iceberg about many things. About his mother, about everything.]

[Shiki had gotten bored enough having his tea and bread alone--looking over across the hill towards another part of the plain. In the distance, he spotted Lea along another hill--though, the campfire he had going was primarily what caught his attention. It didn't seem like there was a group over there rather than one person, so Shiki made his way over.

He hunched his shoulders and slipped his gloves back on--slipping one hand down to carry his tea kettle with him while his free hand hefted his bag onto his shoulder. He could have cared less if Rick's telescope were stolen, so he didn't bother bringing it with him. His results were already sent in, after all.

So, Shiki made his way over to Lea, not knowing who it was until he got close. He was determined to make a good impression, though, which had been the reason for him bringing his tea kettle with him. When he grew closer and saw who it was--Shiki raised his hand up high to wave to him.]

[Pearl taps her chin as she recalls back to that day. It seems like forever ago, and yet only a few months had passed since they transferred here.]

It was... strange.

[Suddenly she remembers that day of arriving in Chantes, wrinkling her nose in distaste.]

It was dark. The taste of something awful in my mouth, I could recall. Some people described it as a 'copper' taste. [Not that she'd know what actual copper tastes like] And then some ringing in my ears but then we were outside the city gates. All of us.

We used some kind of portal transport.

[Shiki had simply begun running, doing his best to look for cover. Getting stuck in a lightning storm wasn't an ideal conclusion to the evening, so he was somewhat put out when he crossed in front of Sion--who just landed on the ground seemingly out of nowhere.]

Gah!

[He nearly dropped Rick's equipment--but, then, though later in the evening he was just as likely to want to break it intentionally, anyway.]

I don't know what you're interested in looking at right about now, but now's not a good time for it!

I would know of it! Most definitely!

[Gilgamesh looks excited by the prospect. Perhaps overly so. Both of his previous Masters were such dull men, wrapped up in themselves and their own respective tragedies, but Pearl was more than that. Pearl was a Gem, precious treasure, honed to perfection. She lacked the weaknesses of humans and her heart shone purely and justly in the name of protecting her world. It is something to envy, something to cherish...

Something to fall for, as it reminded him of a certain King who held to much the same ideals and who also existed beyond humanity. Something to obsess over and hoard, as he did with all his beloved treasure. Gilgamesh may have misunderstood the concept some and, once again, read the air entirely wrong.

Or maybe Pearl just hadn't realized that his Master was as much one of his possessions as anything else.]

The bond between Master and Servant is sacred! It should be held to the highest standard of honesty and forthrightness!

[So says the man with far too many secrets of his own. But he's far too into the act now, waving his hands about emphatically.]

So I'll start right now! Pearl, I'll make the stars appear, just for you! Such is the generosity and benevolence of this fair King!

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PLAYER EVENT ★ HELIOLOGY

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light show~!

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