New World New You

[holographica]

-> (1)

It begins with a bang; then, disorientation, darkness, dismayed voices, and spells that weigh down your limbs like heavy shackles...

The people keeping you captive seem as unsure as you are of what just happened, and argue and mutter amongst themselves, though they don't hesitate to restrain you, chain you to a pipe in the wall of this bottom floor of an underground parking garage, or lock you alone into a smaller room of the abandoned building where the summoning was held. You seem to unnerve them; they don't want to look you in the eye, and if they have to touch you to lock you up, they do so gingerly, nervously.

But maybe, once they leave you to yourself to go and argue and regroup in private, you're not quite alone? You weren't the only person to come out of the array. You have at least one companion in your confusion, one person restrained like you and not wearing the cultists' strange masks. Take comfort, take inventory, and prepare for anything.


-> (2)

The Joyous were prepared for you to attempt escape. Their preparations don't quite match what they got, but even poorly calibrated spells will do something, and the effects of knockout darts and magically reinforced walls don't discriminate. It's time to blow this popsicle stand...

...But you may want to take a moment to comb the area - once the Joyous have had enough time and reason to weigh their options, they'll run, leaving behind the incriminating results of their "botched" summoning. Those less able to escape confinement under their own power may need a hand, or to band together, or, at worst, to wait quite a while for locals to stumble across them...


-> (3)

You step outside into an unfamiliar town; small, sparse, just off a major highway running through the Neloi Flats. A perfect place for a cult looking for an unoccupied building, because there are a lot of those here, as though the town's peak has come and gone, leaving behind rusty signs for roadside attractions and a main street retinue of shops made of sheer stubbornness and spite.

There's not much direction here. There are locals, who will be confused by you, possibly wary and disbelieving. There's a temple, small like the village but likely to have charity you need right now. There's a highway, and following it in either direction will take you to one of two very different cities.

There's a whole country of possibilities before you, in fact. What ones will you chase, and will you do it alone?



[[As of this mingle: go forth and RP! You can treat this post like a game intro, or like a meme post; follow the prompt/s exactly, or alter the details to suit your tastes, or pitch a completely different scene in your own top-level. Let's get some stories started.]]

Comments

[photoshooter]

Great! Here.

[He rolls, a little stiffly, to his feet and comes around the fire towards her--thankfully from the direction that won't immediately run him into anything scaly she might be trying to hide from him. Either way, he's not really paying attention as he swipes through the pictures saved to his camera.]

Right, there we go. One photo of our fine-feathered friends, coming right up.

[He plops down near her, not too close, and offers her his camera so she can see this lovely shot.]

zarc's design will forever just make me laugh tbh,,,

[soft_focus]

[Thank goodness for that then-she's very quick to make sure it's hidden in shadows at the least; as plainly coloured as the arm is, it's still very obviously not a human arm. Not to mention the four bracelets melted into it...

She does her best to lean over to peer at the camera, blinking-and despite herself, finding a small smile on her face. ...They really are something Yuuya would ride.] ...Those are real..?

Not Solid Vision..?

[photoshooter]

[Don't you worry, child. Prompto's only as observant as he needs to be, and he's not looking for any danger out of an elementary school kid.]

Uh, I'm not sure what Solid Vision is, but our chocobos are definitely real. Trust me. Nothing smells realer than a bunch of chocobos in one place.

her's is white fyi

[soft_focus]

[THANK YOU, SELECTIVE OBSERVANT-NESS....

Reira lifts her left arm, a large device strapped to it.] Solid Vision Holograms. They're used in duels, so you can ride the monsters and stand on platforms, or use action cards...

[...Ok so it's a game. And NOT REAL, so not any better that's for sure.] ...I thought anything real smells real.

[photoshooter]

[Most of the Duel Disk talk goes right over Prompto's head, but that's been the case for most of the day, if not most of his life, and he's absorbed about as much weirdness as he can handle in his current condition. Maybe he'll ask later.

Still, what she says about the chocobos makes him chuckle a little.]

Okay, kid. Have you ever smelled a bird? Even a small one. It's a real distinctive scent, right?

and now I'm reminded that I should really make a permissions post for this kid ffff

[soft_focus]

Ummmmm....

[....................She looks to the meat. It's almost done.] ....Does chicken count?

[ANSWER: N O

It might be best not to ask why; there are definitely things in life she has smelled, but most of them are Not Good.]

Man actually I probably should, too. Maybe we all should, given, y'know: Monsterbox.

[photoshooter]

...What's a chicken?

[WELP.]

tldr until then; the SMALLEST OF WINTERSOLDIERS

[soft_focus]

[[OOC - I mean she didn't. Kill anyone I'm pretty sure but she was p traumatized and probably saw some shit at the least.]]

[....We l p.

Reira points to the Chocobo.] Like that...but smaller, and squashed.

And fat.

[um]

Oh no, baby

[photoshooter]

So, like. A baby chocobo? They're about, oh--

[He holds his hands apart to indicate something roughly the size of a chicken. Maybe slightly larger, and plump.]

--Yay-big or so? Real cute. I always wanna hug 'em. They're so round.

basically I picked a muse and then got sLAMMED with appreciated but painful backstory ffff

[soft_focus]

...I think that's what a chicken is... [Wait she doesn't know?!]

...they're not babies though, they're adults. I think it's where eggs for breakfast come from.

Nobody in this entire musebox is okay

[photoshooter]

Oh, no no no. We don't eat chocobos. Chocobos are friends, not food.

[Probably. Look, don't ask me, I checked all the recipes on the FFXV wiki and nothing explicitly uses chocobos for noms so I'm just gonna roll with it, okay.]

If you like eggs and poultry, there's birdbeasts, or chickatrices... man, I could really go for a chickatrice leg right now. If only Iggy were here to cook it...

[S I G H. Seasoning. He already misses seasoning. The smell of Reira's cooking meat doesn't help. Gods, all he wanted out of life were snuggles, not these crazy struggles.]

its true..............

[soft_focus]

[...................Well to be fair, Chocobo are basically Large Running Things, and running things don't really. Taste the same as anything bred for meat.

MUSCLES AND SCIENCE OR SOMETHING. Well, Reira's gingerly pulling the meat out, poking and pulling it across the ash. It'll be dusty, but the meat under it is gonna be good. She looks over to the burned veggies.]

...What did those taste like? [She asks, deciding not to wonder too hard about chickatrices.]

[photoshooter]

Oh. Uh.

[He forgot all about those. He scuttles back over to his side of the campfire and retrieves the fruits (well, tubers, really) of his efforts (if you can call them that).]

I mean, they're no Leiden potatoes, but... I guess they kind of do at least taste like potatoes are supposed to. Maybe a little nuttier. Here, you want to try?

[He tests the topmost roasted sunchoke with his fingers to make sure it's not too hot still, slides it off the spit, and offers it encouragingly to Reira.]

[soft_focus]

[Hmmm. Well, if Prompto isn't dead or ill by now it's probably safe. She hopes. Reira in turn points to the meat.] ...We should try to mix them.

[Maybe put little pieces of thing on the meat. Could taste good right? She holds up her piece in any case.] ...We could share if we do that.

[photoshooter]

[Oh, no. She's a good kid.]

You sure? Well, if you really want to...

[Without giving her a chance to take it back, Prompto hums thoughtfully to himself and looks over their campsite resources. Which is to say, there isn't really anything much around, but with a sudden--] Aha! [He unties the bandanna from around his arm and unfolds it to a full square between them.]

Not the cleanest plate either of us've probably eaten from, but it'll be better than eating right off the ground. Iiiit's kind of like a picnic this way, right?

[Cheerfully, he transfers the rest of his sunchokes to the bandanna and then stretches back towards his side of camp to pick up the hand-sized, vaguely wedge-like rock he's been using as a knife/ax/general cutting-type tool and a flatter piece of wood for a board to chop the roots up. Smaller pieces for easier noms.]

Should I cut the meat, too?

[soft_focus]

[Realistically, she can't eat all this meat on her own anyway after all.

And she kinda feels bad about your burned tuber situation. It's a shitty one, basically.

Reira watches as Prompto puts the 'table' together, and brings the meat down with a nod.] Yeah-it'll be easier to split up that way...

[photoshooter]

Great! Here, let me see what I can do to get the dirt off...

[Yeah, Prompto can't cook to save his life, but with their powers combined, they may yet get some protein and calories into their sad anime bodies.

Prompto does his best to scrape the grossest stuff off the surface of Reira's meat, then cuts it into messy slices of roughly equivalent thickness. Thinking he's being sneaky and clever, he tries to make sure Reira gets more. She's so small.]

Hey, you know something? I don't think we introduced ourselves. My name's Prompto. What's yours?

[soft_focus]

[Very small-probably smaller than her age would imply, honestly, but the fact is that her age is a mystery even to her. It wasn't really important at the time. Still-at Prompto's words, she pauses, taking a moment to register what he said at all.] Um-

...Reira, [she introduces, nodding her head. ...Chicken looks like it's good at any rate...though. Erm. She squints every now and then-if these piles get too clearly unbalanced, she's going to comment.]

[photoshooter]

Reira. [Prompto looks up to see if he's gotten the pronunciation right, then nods to himself and smiles.] That's a cool name! Sounds pretty musical, don't you think?

[There they are, nice, slightly uneven piles of meat and potato substitute and suddenly Prompto is singing.]

Reira, you got me on my knees, Reira... Next time we'll get some cheese, Reira...

[soft_focus]

It is? [She asks, blinking at the singing. ...Kinda weird. In a Yuuya way. It makes her smile, even if it does leave a bit of sadness all the same. She hadn't really been able to think about much when he tried to cheer her up back then. She'd just been scared.

...It's still funny though, and there's a quiet, quiet laugh, before she blinks.] Oh!

I have cheese... [Excuse her while she searches her bag with her visible hand.]

[photoshooter]

Really? Haha, wow! You're putting me to shame, kiddo, you're way more prepared for this camp-out than I am.

[Also, he feels like a huge success right now. He got her to laugh! He is the BEST, COOLEST big brother, EVER. Suck it, Gladio! Actually don't, Gladio please come help him, Prompto has no idea what he's doing and there are too many unsupervised kids out here.]

[soft_focus]

[Welllll.] ...I didn't have fire though. [she comments, glancing to it at the side.] ...I don't know how to do that. I just took this from a temple offering.

[what]

[photoshooter]

[Er.]

Aaaare you supposed to do that?

[soft_focus]

...Statues don't eat cheese.

[UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH]

[photoshooter]

[UMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM]

Well, no, but... I mean, I've seen what gods can do when they get mad. And maybe the ones here are different--like everything else's been so far--but better to be safe than sorry, right?