EVENT ★ NALAWI INTRO

[futurologists]

Recruits leave Oska at midday, with about 10 minutes of final warning given from the jewelry. Then the white mist rises as rifts open, and Oska is left behind. The transition into Nalawi is not a peaceful one. When the mist fades, recruits are immediately hit with a face full of lashing rain and driving wind. The recruits have arrived in the middle of a nasty storm, but that’s not all that greets them. Seawater surges all around, breaking against -- houses? It’s a little hard to tell at first, in the chaos of the storm. Half of these buildings are made of rock, not carved, but shaped, and the other half seem to be living trees, thin wood and thatch, and a handful of more ornate (and more fragile) material, including clouded glass or obsidian. The stone houses are standing up best to this onslaught of waves, but even they weren’t made for this, and they shudder and crumble in the thrashing storm. Thin screams can be heard over the wind and water, too. The locals are having some trouble not being washed away. The people here are small bipedal deer, and those hooves were not meant for swimming. They struggle in the water, some of them trying to snag a few precious belongings from drowning houses, some of them not even able to do much more than hang onto some jutting stone or tree. There are a few heroes among them, putting superhuman powers to good use: here a young man hovers in the air, dragging others out of the water and toward safety; there a girl parts the water with careful gestures of her hands, enabling a whole family to dart from their ruined home and run for higher ground. These feats are rare, though, and on the whole most of these natives are in trouble. They don’t look too stunned to see the new arrivals -- they don’t have time to, and will push roughly past a new arrival to deal with some crisis sooner than stop and stare. They’re mostly just grateful for any offered help, generally seeming terrified and shellshocked by all of this. If any of them are asked what happened, they’ll point with varying degrees of wordlessness toward a high stone wall between the village and the sea, with an enormous gap broken through the middle of it where the sea rushes in. Like many of the houses, this dike was clearly shaped from living stone. But whatever shaped it apparently has no power to maintain it, and this is the storm that had finally taken advantage of that. This long, dark afternoon provides plenty of tasks: help the Nalawi people evacuate from their ruined village, try to find material to rebuild their shattered (and still crumbling) dike, or take care of the hungry sea creatures that have taken notice that the deer, usually safe on land, are suddenly in easy reach. They look like crabs with too many legs, but each of them is nearly the size of one of the villagers. They’re more than capable of seizing a struggling villager and scuttling back toward the break in the dike to drag their prize into the sea. Their shells are difficult to get through, their pincers terrible and sharp, but their joints and eyes are unprotected and tender. The storm won’t last forever, though. It blows itself out in a few hours, just in time for a truly beautiful tropical sunset over the western edge of the island. Exhausted locals will finally begin to talk a little more. They’ll explain to their rescuers that the Stone Shapers have all had their Gifts faded out: there’s not a single one left. Without these abilities, the dike was left defenseless against the storm and the water rushed in. Their despondency and resignation suggests this kind of disaster is not new to them. They are, however, very grateful for the help: anyone who lends a hand over the new few days (thankfully sunny and clear) sorting through the wreckage, rebuilding, and setting up new dikes will be given food and shown to the inn for free lodgings. Welcome to Komo, Nalawi. OOC INFO ICly this log will cover the day of arrival and the following few days of recuperating and rebuilding, if you would like to include that in your top level prompts. OOCly it will last until the 26th. New information will be available at that time. As some quick refreshers, we have our Mission Overview here, which also includes a questions subthread for general questions. For intro event-specific inquiries, please see the comments below. Additionally, be sure to have read the Chantes epilogue as well as the Nalawi: Locations page. Note that we will also have new characters arriving during the event, so be sure to give them a hand!

Comments

i'm so sorry for being so slow, it's been a terrible week

[conqueress]

Yes. [ That much, she has heard. ] Or it may come true, but not in the way you would think.

[ Hers has already begun, in ways she could not have imagined. She has suffered two of her three betrayals, and seen the pale mare. As yet, she knows nothing of a mummer's dragon, or a kraken, or a lion--but at this point, she thinks herself a fool to discount Quaithe's warnings entirely. ]

I am not certain which way frightens me more.

[ She so rarely admits to being afraid, or even to being uncertain. But though Sieglinde is young, she already seems wiser than half her council, and twice as wise as she was at that age.

Drogon disappears beneath the waves, emerging with a fish as steam rises from his scales. For the first time, the queen looks to Sieglinde's feet. ] Did you pay a price, to learn your green magic?

<3 hope things are better for you now

[grunehexe]

[Prophecy. It was a tricky thing, wasn't it... Predicting the future in dreams and mists from the earth and tea leaves and stars. Nothing could be wholly certain, nothing sure... Until it happened to you, and you knew.]

The future is a scary prospect whether we know of what will come or not, I feel... Funny how it is easier for us to assign prophecy to the past rather than the future.

[Hindsight was a powerful thing, illuminating, and Sieglinde certainly couldn't judge this woman for admitting fear in the face of an unknown, of a fearful fate prophesied. She too had once intoned them for herself, that one day outsiders would come and take that which was most precious from her, that one day she would be free of the witch forest...

They'd both come true, and neither like she'd imagined. At the question, Sieglinde's gaze followed Daenerys' to her feet, unable to flex toes that were broken and folded under, the bridge smashed and shaped into an arch, but she could roll her ankles- did, the gentle ocean waves breaking on bandages and soaking in.]

My price was freedom, in more than one way. I was glad to pay it, then, but.

[She had been ignorant, and naive, and the future as the Green Witch had been all she ever thought open to her. She smiled, but it was a bitter, aching thing despite its width. No one asked questions like that without some degree of personal experience.]

I cannot change the past more than any person can, however. I hope yours may yet be returned to you.

thank you :)

[conqueress]

How truly you speak. [ Idly, she picks up a handful of wet sand, allowing it to fall in clumps between her fingers. ] If my council had but half of your wisdom, I could dismiss half my court. [ She has sometimes thought much the same of Missandei, her little scribe with eyes that had seen too much. How had it come to this, speaking plainly only to children?

Eventually, she turns away from the feet, feeling sad. Who could do that to someone so young? she might demand. How can this girl be expected to run, to go where she wishes? Yet Dany has seen much and more of suffering. She knows the world is not kind, even to the young--and so if Sieglinde will not elaborate, the queen will not press. She has secrets enough of her own; who is she to deny someone else that comfort?

For a moment, the sad smile is mirrored in her own face. ]

You are kind, but ghosts cannot be returned.

[ Only avenged. But that truth remains unspoken. ]

I paid thrice--but only the last price was given willingly. For that, I gained dragons.

[ And her ghosts had only grown louder. It is not only Drogo and Rhaego she carries with her, but Viserys, and a family she never knew.

The sun is red over the water, the sky darkening rapidly. Soon Drogon will seek his Dragonstone, and so, too, must she, though part of her wishes to stay and see the stars. ]

I must find lodging before Drogon decides to escape me. [ She smiles, wry. ] He is smaller now, but he may well claim some house for his own, if I let him. Have you found your quarters?

[ She will gladly bargain for them, if the diminutive witch hasn't already done so for herself. At the very least, she will offer escort, or seek someone else who may do it. ]

;3

[grunehexe]

I always did think I would be a wise advisor to someone eventually.

[When she thought about it back in her world, it had seemed more likely that person would be her own daughter, the next Green Witch... but she has enough shamelessness and ignorance of real titles and rank to say such a thing to a Queen, to try and lighten the heavy mood that had darkened the sight of her first sunset, her first calm ocean.

Three payments. Dragons. What price did one pay for dragons? Was it worth it? It didn't seem right to ask, even though she really wanted to know. Not everyone's payments were as obvious as her own.

Instead, she sought out Drogon's silhouette again on the horizon.]

I have not yet... I shall call one of my disciples later to assist me.

[That was one of the perks of having disciples, after all- and she didn't feel like leaving the sight in front of her just yet.]

lmao DON'T MIND THE KEYWORDS, they don't apply here

[conqueress]

[ The quip presumes too much, and it earns Sieglinde a swift look, but Dany has always favored boldness in men. How can she quell it in a girl? ] And what a someone you have chosen, [ she teases, rising to her feet as chunks of wet sand fall from her fingers. The little witch spoke of disciples--does she have them, truly, or is it only to seem more authoritative? Dany wouldn't put it past her. ]

Stay, then. [ And be young, with little to weigh down her young heart. Dany's hands go back to her hair, wringing out the last drops of seawater. ] We will speak again, I have no doubt.