epidemiology | EVENT ★ BACK TO THE FUTURE

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EVENT ★ BACK TO THE FUTURE

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If Serene has blown Laedo's particular glittery self up in her mind into something more radiant, she will be sorely disappointed when she meanders back along a familiar path to find the askan asandus slumped in a clearing, wings clinging loosely around his body. There's something odd about him, something clearly sick, even if he is sporting no obvious wound. Greyish, dulled by a much-diminished magical shell, Laedo his breathing shallowly, head resting on the ground without regard for a prim posture. His tail twitches occasionally, spastic, like he is barely able to contain some great pain.

He doesn't at first spot Serene as she draws near, eyes closed as they are, muzzle drawn into a wrinkled mass. Just as he draws near, his marred eye flies open and his ears swivel in her general direction. He gives an agonized sigh. "It's... you," he says, unable to muster any inflection in his tone.

She freezes for a moment at the edge of the clearing, gawping in dismay before breaking into a headlong run towards his massive head. Fuck, he looks like a poisoned camel and she's no Borekko able to work out what the antidote could be.

She staggers to a halt by his massive face and presses her hands on his once-glorious muzzle.

"Laedo, can you turn human? I'll take you to the castle, we'll find a doctor." Her stomach is clenching in dismay, for there's no way she's going to be able to do anything if he stays the size that he is, but she's fighting to keep her voice calm for him.

Everything is well and good up until she touches him. Laedo, flinching in shock--his eye is not in very good shape, and he is in nowhere near the condition to parse sudden movements--loses control of his intense concentration. His magic, preoccupied entirely with holding his form against the suction of the temporal divide, caves in on its last leg and Serene finds herself face to face with a yawning chasm filled with every possibility; Laedo from the size of a kitten, newborn and glossy, to old age, massive and almost entirely golden. And it is not only that. She'll see him flickering before her across many different timelines, many different iterations of the same creature for better or worse.

It's so rapid as to be an ethereal dance, but it does not last long. A few moments of the chaotic dance pass and at the end of it, a much smaller dragonet the size of a large dog settles, curled up into a fetal ball, shaking as if in pain or fear. For long, long seconds, the clearing is still, but the dragonet remains as though catatonic, unaware of Serene's presence.

She scrabbles back as bursts into a ball of magic, throwing her arm up to protect herself, as if her mere human limb would shield her should any of these golden shadows solidify and fall upon her. She's too close to make out much of his larger, towering selves, but he's chokingly, overwhelmingly beautiful. She stays cringing back for a moment after the flickers settle, panting and blinking hard to clear her vision of the afterglow of his magnificence.

What's left is so small. She huffs, struck by the thought that this at least is someone who she should be able to carry as she rolls to her feet and pads quietly over.

"Laedo?" She crouches and reaches out gingerly, half-afraid he might burst into golden shadows again, and strokes his shoulder with her fingertips. "Laedo, are you well?"

The voice that rumbles from the tightly bundled form is higher pitched, but not as highly as a human child. Laedo gives a whine before he shakes himself out of his tight curl, and in a few bleary moments he blinks up at Serene, utterly gobsmacked and confused. He looks as though he's just waking from a deep sleep. "...Mother?" he asks, though even now the tone of his voice is highly dubious. He's already arching his neck down to his hands, rubbing knuckles into his closed eyes--both as gold as other parts of him, not a purple splotch to be seen--as he seems to be shaking off the surreal event.

Her shoulders tighten in dismay. Mother? How young is he? Given how small he is he can't be more than a toddler. Is he going to cry when she tells him the truth? Will Laedo forgive her for making him cry once he's himself again? She desperately wishes that she'd come to find him earlier, for she is sure she has forgotten details about his people that would aid her in a situation like this.

She clears her throat and tries to sound as gentle as possible. "No, my name is Serene. I'm, ahhh, I'm here to look after you. You will be back with your mother before too long." She sincerely hopes. She holds out her hand to his nose, unsure of what to do and thus defaulting to treating him as she would a camel calf.

Luckily, this camel calf does not yet know how to spit. Laedo seems to take her words in stride, though his little brow is still crinkled with worry, and his steps are still shaky from the recent transformation--a transformation that he has no memory of, at the moment.

He reaches up his snout to butt her hand in thanks, but as he does so he takes a deep whiff. Something is strange here... and come to think of it, something is strange about her face, too. He nearly falls on his tail as he moves into a sit to gawp. "Are you a human?"

Oh thank the Mercy, he doesn't burst into immediate tears. She's awash with relief that he's seemingly old enough to have a coherent conversation with, never mind that he's a mere speck of a creature compared to his full grown self. She grins widely at him and hopes that he doesn't find her flat face as off-putting as the oryx had.

"Yes, I'm human. Have you never met one of my kind before?"

She wiggles her flexible human digits at him, for those are what other peoples on Callirhoe were usually most impressed by.

Perhaps the digits are not as impressive to Laedo, but that is only because his kind have forefeet with long, dexterous fingers of their own. More impressive to the child is Serene's long sweeps of wavy, pale hair, and he is a little bit agape at her smile, though he would never say it. "I, um, well yes, I have! Sort of! My Goddess graced us with human forms, and... occasionally... we treat with them to better your kind... only I haven't seen one up close before. They don't come into the temple and they don't live in Sanctuary proper."

She finds it so very gratifying to see him staring with the sort of gawping awe that she's sure she used to wear when she greeted him. She settles cross-legged onto the flattened grass and spreads her arms wide, turning her chin side to side so he can get a good look at her face.

"Then as the first human you have seen up close, I am glad to grant you the honour of settling your curiosity. You may touch me as long as you are gentle with your claws."

Normally she'd ask permission before touching him, but normally he isn't so tiny and open. She leans in and indulges her own curiosity by stroking one of his long ears.

Her reward is a tickled giggle, and Laedo pulls back sharply for a moment, before leaning in to the touch and putting up a rumble as to befit someone his size. It makes his voice a little husky, but he seems content to speak through the uncontrolled purring. "I would never use my claws! We don't harm your kind, you're too smart and clever!" Questing forth, he attempted to settled his entire weight in her lap, curled tail and all. ...He's not had much direct affection in his life, but the occasional times he's got it, he's very much appreciated it.

She has to lean back and stretch out her legs to make room for all of him on her, but she's delighted to have him so openly affectionate. She lets him settle before resting her hands on him, cooing with a force she hadn't thought she'd be able to muster when he first appeared.

"You are such a beautiful child, aren't you? Look at this beautiful tail!" She strokes the long and lustrous golden hair at the end of his tail, grinning broadly at finally being able to indulge her curiosity. "Do Askans ever plait or decorate this hair or do you leave it loose to the wind?"

Laedo is much too busy being distracted by attention to at first answer her question, but finally it registers, and he whisks his tail by accident out of her hand--then plaps it back down atop her hands as though in apology. "Sometimes we use little lights, but I'm not very good at keeping them in," he admits, only a little sheepish as he goes on, "Do you do your own hair? It is very pretty!"

"Do you think so?" She's chuffed. "Yes I do, for styling myself is my delight. Here!"

She leans over him and pulls out the comb holding the front of her hair away from her face, sending with a shake of her head a cascade of curls onto him. Laughing, she shifts a long hank of hair so that it drapes between his ears.

"And you look just as beautiful with curls as you do without. It is only my lack of pearlescence that spoils the picture."

Laedo pulls back for a moment with a startled noise, then gives a laugh as he realizes what Serene is doing. Poking his muzzle up between the hair she's draped on him, he blows the rest out from his nose and grins at her, the expression lost a bit when most of it is composed of tilted ears and lifted cheeks. "Look, I'll fix it," he tells her, before squirming hugely in her lap and clapping his hands around the proffered hair. In a few moments several little globs of glowing dew appear where he's fiddled, presumably the decoration he's told her about a moment ago...

And true to form, if she gives any of them a tug, they come free without much issue. They're almost like little pearls of light itself, lighting up the space between them as he grins proudly at her.

He startles her with his wriggles and she wraps her arms about him to make sure he doesn't roll himself completely off of her lap. She has a flash of alarm at his offer to fix her hair- whatever he's doing, she'd better be able to hide it with a clever hairstyle- but she doesn't shake him off.

And the lights he leaves on her make her so very glad she let him play. She laughs in delight, letting go of him to gently poke one of the globules with the tip of her finger, fearing almost that it will pop like a drop of water.

"These are beautiful, you beautiful child!" She shakes her curls and laughs again at how she shines. "I look like a flower at dawn when the first light of dawn hits me." And for that she leans in and kisses the tip of his nose. "Ahh, you are so sweet! Who would have thought you could be this sweet?"

"I am?" Laedo asks, face going red at the kiss. His tail is thumping her leg and the ground beside it hard enough to make its own noise. "I mean, I am the agent of Aska, who is sweetness and light; they say children are her purest instruments because we play so well," though to be honest, Laedo doesn't sound as though he's sure about that. He tries to grab more of her hair, hopeful that clapping more beads of light to her will garner more kisses and praise.

She huffs as he drags her head down in his enthusiasm, but the pain in her scalp doesn't dull her grin as he keeps on decorating her.

"Sweetness and light, that's exactly what you are!" She kisses his nose again, for he really is the sweetness right now, and if she can recognise any motivation it's the motivation to win more praise. "You're sweeter than honey and your lights are the most beautiful I have ever seen."

But for all that he's got a human personality he's shaped more like her camel than her, so she strokes his neck like he's a calf, scratching up under his jaw as she nuzzles him. She indulges her curiosity by feeling up further and stroking his neck horns, testing their firmness and sharpness with her fingertips.

"What are these for? Are they decorations, beautiful child?"

At least Laedo's attempts to bedazzle her entire head are dulled when she scritches his chin and neck. The contact is unfamiliar but very welcome to one who has had very little physical contact. It might be a bit like being babied, but since his sister is nowhere near to sneer at him and use him as an example of her maturity, he'll indulge. His eyes have sunk fully closed by the time she gets to his horns, and Laedo arches his neck back in hopes for more scratching. "No, they're part of me! We all have them, didn't you know?"

"I did not! You are the only Askan I have ever met." She slides her fingers between the horns to feel at how they join to his neck before taking his unsubtle hint and going back to scritching him. "And let me tell you, shimmering one, you are the most excellent ambassador for your people."

That honestly has Laedo looking up at her with open adoration. Ambassadors are looked up to somewhere among the ranks of fida'venae as the gentle shepherds for a wayward species, and Laedo has always himself been considered somewhat of a wayward dragonet, or at least among his family. To be called so highly by a member of the species his have always been said to protect is almost too over the sun for him to grasp. After a moment or two, he tries to stammer out some gratitude, but it's too overwhelming.

The askan struggles out of her lap and gives a wings-spread bow, nose resting on his paw. Prostration is a more extreme response to the sort of hierarchy he's been steeped in since birth, but at this point it's all he can think to do to show his appreciation.

She knows she's gone too far when he prostrates himself like that. It's an embarrassingly obscient gesture, especially given that she's half sure he'll remember this day...

She strokes his muzzle with her fingertips. "Sweetness, you don't ever need to bow to me. Come on, look me in the eye, what I want more than anything else is for you to see me as an equal." She hopes he's young enough not to notice the discomfort in her voice.

When he looks she smiles sweetly for him. "Shall I show you where I live? I am sure that a human castle is nothing like an Asandus home."

Luckily, at his age it is easy to bounce back now and again, and it is very easy for Laedo to believe he is on an equal footing with a human, even a very pretty one who has been terrifically kind. The final nail in the coffin of his nerves is her offer to show him around. It reminds him he has no idea where he is... but seeing a human castle is so outside of his expectations that he can't help but cheer up.

"I would love to see it!" He is on all fours again, bouncing a little in his exuberance until he forcefully restrains himself and folds his wings back into a polite position.

That enthusiasm makes her laugh brightly as she stands. She pushes her dew drop shimmering hair back over her shoulders, taking a moment to primp her curls before settling her hand on Laedo's head.

"When we look around, will you tell me about your Askan homes and how different they are to mine?" She can't resist stroking his ears as she sets off through the forest towards the road to the castle.

"Of course I can," Laedo replies. He's already leaning into the stroking again, only a little sheepish now that he know what lengths she is willing to go, even as a child with a child's mind. He's still not sure how he feels about being called an ambassador, but he is taking it very seriously... and that seems to be translating back into his little ego puffing up.

"Our entire city is built into the side of Ansaras Prime, the root of the mountains! It is a perfect dome, you know, so that when you fly over it you can contemplate the manner of space." This, he's learned from banter rather than personal experience, yet he's as puffed up as ever as he spouts it off.

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