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

[12inches]

[ On the other hand, Sigma's been spending what he's had of the week playing a pretty equally miserable game of catch-up. He understood the weird shifty business by now, understood that his lost time had been spent as some elderly variety of shifty business, but other than that, things were fragmented to nonexistent. He couldn't even be sure of what had transpired and what he imagined had transpired; he'd "met" his older self at one point, at least through a recording, and what a pretentious old fuck he'd been. All weird metaphors and bigger pictures. ]

[ This kind of thing was one of the worst parts of all the timeline-related bullshit for him, even if this wasn't his doing. Having been blessed with a flawless memory all his life, the fact that he could barely make out a thing from the past few days was driving him up the wall. Even remembering nothing would be better than this grasping for straws game he's been playing all morning. ]

[ Not to mention Ramir's just been gone. ]

[ Or just very good at hiding. ]

[ Maybe she was masquerading as something he couldn't recognize, and that's what kept Sigma looking. Peering a little too intently at every brunette that passed until he finally pinpoints a creeping figure down the hall that fits his exact profile. Wait, were things back to normal? Things are back to normal!! ]

Ramir! [ The flinch is lost to his exuberant perk-up, and he gains about three inches as he trots over, shoulders unhunched, eyes bright. Nagging sensations turning to screeching alarms as she turns to high-tail it pushed further into the back of his mind by the sheer delight of finally seeing her again. ] Ramir, I'm—

[ He wants to pile onto her from behind or scoop her off her feet, but for once the spikes on her jacket seem to lance him from well across the hall and he stops short of plowing into her. Not even his favorite pastime of Denying Everything That's Wrong is going to work on this one. ]

I'm— [ Lost for words, apparently. Overexcitement flooded by uncertainty distilling his thoughts down to the simplest verbal execution. ] It's me. If that's... you.

[ It's back to normal, right..? ]

[heavyhitter]

[ She hears her own name, and her first instinct is to break into a run. Of course on top of everything else she'd actually be spotted, dragged back into the exact thing she's been running from —

— But a second later some confusion registers over that. That older Sigma was a whole lot of undesirable traits (mainly wrong, foremost and most offensive), but overly cruel wasn't on the list. She can admit that. So she'd been sure that even if he'd spotted her, he'd let her slip away with no fuss.

So that's mostly why she pauses, heart frozen, daring to feel maybe a little trickle of hope. Her name again, a few fragments, something that sounds very Sigma. Not wrong-Sigma, but right-Sigma that she'd assumed was just gone. She allows herself to turn back around, slowly, dreading being wrong and getting her heart torn up all over again. But the uncertain look she sees in Sigma, the sheer presence of any emotion aside from distanced pity, swells the trickle of hope into a torrent. Her eyes promptly fill with tears that had the same idea. ]

Holy shit. [ She'd really like to fling herself forward, but finds herself temporarily frozen instead, wavering just slightly, taking in the full sight of a missing-presumed-as-good-as-dead boyfriend. Her blurring gaze lingers on his hair. ] Your haircut looked so fucking stupid...