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June-July 2024 Test Drive Meme
June-July 2024 TDM
Introduction
Welcome to Folkmore's monthly Test Drive Meme! Please feel free to test drive any and all characters regardless of your intent to apply or whether you have an invite or not.
All TDMs are game canon and work like "mini-events". For new players and characters, you can choose to have your TDM thread be your introduction thread upon acceptance or start fresh. Current players are also allowed to have in-game characters post to the TDM so long as they mark their top levels ‘Current Character.’
TDM threads can be used for spoon spending at any time by characters accepted into the game.
Playing and interacting with the TDMs will allow characters to immediately obtain canon items from homes especially weapons or other things they may have had on their person when they were pulled from their worlds! There will always be a prompt that provides some sort of "reward" to characters who complete certain tasks.
🦊 New Star Children meet the Fox still in their worlds, and she brings them into the new realm of Folkmore. As you follow her, your body begins to change and new characteristics emerge. These may stay for a while, or perhaps they will hide away after. And during all of this, the Fox explains to you where you will be going: to Folkmore.
and then... you fall like a shooting star, falling to the land in a burst of starlight.
🦊 Experienced Star Children are already familiar with this time of the month. There are shooting stars all across the sky, and some fall to the land, which means the Fox has brought new arrivals. These newly arrived Star Children will face some tests, but Thirteen wants the more seasoned residents to participate as well.
Perhaps you follow the falling stars on your own, or perhaps the Fox simply teleports you there, but it appears you too will be part of this.
Content Warnings: Ghosts, Potential Violence, Potential Death
Summer has hit. It's hot, and nowhere is it hotter than Cruel Summer. Naturally, new Star Children arrive in Cruel Summer with no indication of which direction to go to escape, unless they're so lucky as to arrive near the Selkie River. The water provides a break, and a selkie skin will protect Star Children from the heat. Though beware the cruelty of leaving a selkie without their skin. Along with the heat, Star Children can hear whispers and the echoes of screams throughout Cruel Summer. There's no obvious source of the noises. Not the normal creatures. Not anything anyone can see.
Whether new or old Star Child, anyone lost, overheated, in need of a rest, or anything else will find a friendly spirit will find them in the sands, rock, or shores of Cruel Summer. They'll guide the way toward the huts found in Cruel Summer. These huts have changed; the huts are bigger and grow together, making them one interconnected twisting winding empty town. No one appears to live there. The wooden town is in disrepair, varying from building to building. Even so, they are cool inside, a welcome break from the summer heat.
No matter how one entered, even through the swinging doors to the saloon, that exit disappears behind Star Children. There's no turning back. The only way out is to explore the way through the buildings. This fact continues to be true building to building as exits continue to vanish. The abandoned town isn't as empty as it first seems. As Star Children explore the branching paths through the wooden structures, they see ghosts of spirits going through the paces of their lives. They're familiar to these spaces and interact with missing objects that sometimes shimmer in spirit energy.
Spirit Children may interrupt these routines to try to talk with the ghosts. Some ghostly spirits are friendly. They may interact with Star Children as though they're someone else, someone the spirits used to know. Others, like the bartender, may treat them like a new customer. Other ghosts are determined to stick to their routines and, should Star Children continue to interrupt, will attack those who disturb them.
These spirits may kill Star Children when they attack. Normal weapons won't hurt them. There are revolvers, shotguns, iron pokers, hunting knives, and other plain weapons around to grab in self-defense. Salt bullets and iron will dispel ghosts. These weapons may be grabbed at any time. However, doing so attracts the creatures in Cruel Summer. A blood red worm spitting yellow acid may break through the floor to eat or spray Star Children. An enormous coyote may leap through the window. Whether attracted by the use of weapons or passing by, any dangerous creature found in Cruel Summer seems agitated when they come near these structures and will attack them and anyone inside. They will focus especially on anyone with a stolen selkie skin.
Should Star Children die, whether to ghosts or creatures, they will not immediately return to life.Do not pass go. Instead they will haunt the ghost town for one week in the room where they were killed. Other Star Children may recognize them and work to snap them out of their routines. Yet nothing will free the Star Children's spirits before the week is through. At the end of the week, they'll come to, alive, in their bodies in the room they died in. Best get through and out of the ghost town before dying again!
A constant through these scenes are the spirits' spoons, visible somewhere in each scene. The ghost spoons are whole. Once free of the ghost town, Star Children may choose to travel to the Shattered Spoon Shrine in Never Fade to search for the broken fragments of any of these spoons. They are in such small pieces, however, that no Star Child may feed them enough Lore alone to bring the spirit back. Two or more Star Children may spend time in the Shrine creating and feeding Lore toward the spoons to heal them. It just may be enough to bring someone back.
Summer has hit. It's hot, and nowhere is it hotter than Cruel Summer. Naturally, new Star Children arrive in Cruel Summer with no indication of which direction to go to escape, unless they're so lucky as to arrive near the Selkie River. The water provides a break, and a selkie skin will protect Star Children from the heat. Though beware the cruelty of leaving a selkie without their skin. Along with the heat, Star Children can hear whispers and the echoes of screams throughout Cruel Summer. There's no obvious source of the noises. Not the normal creatures. Not anything anyone can see.
Whether new or old Star Child, anyone lost, overheated, in need of a rest, or anything else will find a friendly spirit will find them in the sands, rock, or shores of Cruel Summer. They'll guide the way toward the huts found in Cruel Summer. These huts have changed; the huts are bigger and grow together, making them one interconnected twisting winding empty town. No one appears to live there. The wooden town is in disrepair, varying from building to building. Even so, they are cool inside, a welcome break from the summer heat.
No matter how one entered, even through the swinging doors to the saloon, that exit disappears behind Star Children. There's no turning back. The only way out is to explore the way through the buildings. This fact continues to be true building to building as exits continue to vanish. The abandoned town isn't as empty as it first seems. As Star Children explore the branching paths through the wooden structures, they see ghosts of spirits going through the paces of their lives. They're familiar to these spaces and interact with missing objects that sometimes shimmer in spirit energy.
Spirit Children may interrupt these routines to try to talk with the ghosts. Some ghostly spirits are friendly. They may interact with Star Children as though they're someone else, someone the spirits used to know. Others, like the bartender, may treat them like a new customer. Other ghosts are determined to stick to their routines and, should Star Children continue to interrupt, will attack those who disturb them.
These spirits may kill Star Children when they attack. Normal weapons won't hurt them. There are revolvers, shotguns, iron pokers, hunting knives, and other plain weapons around to grab in self-defense. Salt bullets and iron will dispel ghosts. These weapons may be grabbed at any time. However, doing so attracts the creatures in Cruel Summer. A blood red worm spitting yellow acid may break through the floor to eat or spray Star Children. An enormous coyote may leap through the window. Whether attracted by the use of weapons or passing by, any dangerous creature found in Cruel Summer seems agitated when they come near these structures and will attack them and anyone inside. They will focus especially on anyone with a stolen selkie skin.
Should Star Children die, whether to ghosts or creatures, they will not immediately return to life.
A constant through these scenes are the spirits' spoons, visible somewhere in each scene. The ghost spoons are whole. Once free of the ghost town, Star Children may choose to travel to the Shattered Spoon Shrine in Never Fade to search for the broken fragments of any of these spoons. They are in such small pieces, however, that no Star Child may feed them enough Lore alone to bring the spirit back. Two or more Star Children may spend time in the Shrine creating and feeding Lore toward the spoons to heal them. It just may be enough to bring someone back.
- Whispers, echoes of screams, etc become common throughout Cruel Summer
- Huts become bigger, interconnected, growing together. Anyone lost, overheated, in need of something in Cruel Summer gets a friendly spirit redirecting them to these buildings
- Buildings will still be in some state of disrepair, but like a whole twisting winding town
- Insides are a cool respite
supernatural ghost spirit air conditioning - Only way out is through, no turning back, as the exits disappear behind you
- Many are friendly, but some are not. One can attempt to talk to them, but how interactive they are varies
- Occasionally other creatures from Cruel Summer may burst in and attack
- If a Star Child dies, rather than return to life immediately, they stay a ghost for about a week, part of the tour
Content Warnings: Fire, Coerced Confessions
Fire! Fire across the realm! For the second half of June, wildfire burns everywhere. While it doesn’t hurt Star Children, it can reduce everything else to ash: homes, businesses, gardens, spirits. The local spirits will be in a panic and beg Star Children for help from small ice mice in Wintermute to fennec foxes in Cruel Summer. How can Star Children help? Confessions. Anything the person they are with doesn’t know. The more earnest and meaningful the better.
When wildfire erupts and spreads, Star Children may stand in or in front of an area they want to protect and confess something to another Star Child who happens to be nearby. Their neighbor? Their partner? A stranger lost in a new land? These confessions simply need to be something the other person doesn’t know to protect structures and spirits. Memories related to the confession will show in the fire. The fire will fuel these memories until they run out of energy, dying down to embers. At least in that place at that time.
Should something start to burn before someone confesses, multiple confessions are necessary to catch the wildfire’s attention and distract it from the fuel source it is feeding on. Two or more Star Children will need to make confessions whose memories are shared in the flames. Water powers can also help quell the flames, but confessions are necessary in the end.
Once July hits, the wildfires are mostly gone, only sparking up here and there on occasion. In their stead are embers. They spark in the air like fireflies and fly around Folkmore, attracted to Star Children. These embers land on Star Children and make them glow. There’s no pain. In fact, the embers provide sparks of insight into memories, situations, and other emotional dilemmas that Star Children haven’t previously understood. Talking the issue over with another Star Children provides further emotional clarity.
Spirits are welcoming to both embers and Star Children. Confessionshelp Folkmore grow as well. Gardens bloom in beautiful displays. Crops grow healthy and joyful. It’s even possible to hear humming from some of the vegetables and fruits. The land grows with the Star Children. Anyone who lacks a green thumb can work their way around that with confessions! Save that dying plant and grow those tomatoes.
One time that a Star Child confesses, either to wildfire or to embers, they will find a jeweled box shaped like a flame. The peak of the flame comes off to reveal the insides. Within, there is an item from home. It may even be a weapon or magical item. Larger more meaningful confessions are more likely to receive weapons. These items may even be larger than should fit in the box or its entrance. Whether the box should only hold a single ring or fill the palm of one’s hand, these items fit. Star Children also can keep the jeweled box, and this one item from home can be stored within the box. Other items too large to fit the box will not enter it. Only the one from the box.
Fire! Fire across the realm! For the second half of June, wildfire burns everywhere. While it doesn’t hurt Star Children, it can reduce everything else to ash: homes, businesses, gardens, spirits. The local spirits will be in a panic and beg Star Children for help from small ice mice in Wintermute to fennec foxes in Cruel Summer. How can Star Children help? Confessions. Anything the person they are with doesn’t know. The more earnest and meaningful the better.
When wildfire erupts and spreads, Star Children may stand in or in front of an area they want to protect and confess something to another Star Child who happens to be nearby. Their neighbor? Their partner? A stranger lost in a new land? These confessions simply need to be something the other person doesn’t know to protect structures and spirits. Memories related to the confession will show in the fire. The fire will fuel these memories until they run out of energy, dying down to embers. At least in that place at that time.
Should something start to burn before someone confesses, multiple confessions are necessary to catch the wildfire’s attention and distract it from the fuel source it is feeding on. Two or more Star Children will need to make confessions whose memories are shared in the flames. Water powers can also help quell the flames, but confessions are necessary in the end.
Once July hits, the wildfires are mostly gone, only sparking up here and there on occasion. In their stead are embers. They spark in the air like fireflies and fly around Folkmore, attracted to Star Children. These embers land on Star Children and make them glow. There’s no pain. In fact, the embers provide sparks of insight into memories, situations, and other emotional dilemmas that Star Children haven’t previously understood. Talking the issue over with another Star Children provides further emotional clarity.
Spirits are welcoming to both embers and Star Children. Confessions
One time that a Star Child confesses, either to wildfire or to embers, they will find a jeweled box shaped like a flame. The peak of the flame comes off to reveal the insides. Within, there is an item from home. It may even be a weapon or magical item. Larger more meaningful confessions are more likely to receive weapons. These items may even be larger than should fit in the box or its entrance. Whether the box should only hold a single ring or fill the palm of one’s hand, these items fit. Star Children also can keep the jeweled box, and this one item from home can be stored within the box. Other items too large to fit the box will not enter it. Only the one from the box.
- Last two weeks of June, wildfire burns across Folkmore. After that, they are rare.
- Confessions can protect or rescue buildings, land areas, and spirits.
- Come July, embers spark across Folkmore like fireflies. They provide insight for Star Children. Talking helps.
- Confessions help the land grow.
- Confessions reveal a jeweled box containing an item from home.
no subject
He gives another little huff at the mention of his mode of arrival. "I have done stranger," getting eaten by a whale while squid-shaped had been way weirder, "but yes, it is quite the beginning. I am sorry to have interrupted."
Out here for other purposes, delicately put, implied his impromptu welcomer did not want those purposes noised about--and therefore it isn't Illarion's place to pry, just like it isn't his place to pry into why this young man is much more than he seems.
But oh, he wants to. Perhaps a suitable opportunity will present itself...
"I can perceive you, let us say, and it is being near enough to vision. And I do not mind, to be carried to somewhere less, mm, empty." It's an odd kind of beautiful even so and he really would like to linger--and suspects he might do fine against most things that came to try and eat him--but there is no reason to protest a generous offer, and it gives him more chances to unravel this particular mystery.
"There is a river nearby, perhaps?" He does not remember his fall that well, but it seems right to think so.
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The most obvious brand of a monster, it should have been more obvious to him before arriving here. Well, now he knew, and it was up to him to keep that from getting out of hand and harming innocents, like this person. "There's plenty of time later." There's always things around to kill, day or night.
He could wait a little longer. Postponement wasn't denial, and sat a little easier against the ragged desire to find a nest of monsters and incinerate them all. "And yes, there is. It's called Selke, and if followed long enough drops you into a swamp that will drown you in your own guilt if you have any."
There's little other warning that Sephiroth fully intends to follow up with his offer, simply stepping closer and hauling the taller elf right off the ground with all the effortless ease of a grown adult picking up a child and not the other way around, the heat of the sun briefly eclipsed by broad, owlish wings. Getting off the ground is an expected series of hard jerking flaps, but he does his best to mitigate how jarring this is going to be.
"Do you remember what you were told on the way here?"
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And then--they're off! It's only a little bit surprising to be picked up so suddenly--but he did assent, and this young man does have a martial demeanor about him. The soldier in Illarion heartily approves the lack of faffing about on the evac, even if it takes the rest of him a moment or two to catch up with the sudden transition from sand back to sky.
"Some!" he says, once they're flying--pitching his uncanny voice a little louder to be heard over the rush of air. The lack of more feather noise confirms what he thought he'd ((felt))--those primaries are owl-soft around the edges, muted. No wonder he hadn't really registered the young man's arrival til after he'd landed.
"The Fox has brought us 'Star Children' here, so that we are having a chance to become more than we were where she found us. And this is a world of stories, yes? Tales and folklore, wherein we are marked villains and heroes and bystanders."
He could get behind that whole-heartedly, born as he was in the years of Lights.
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There's a canyon ahead. Is it something that can be seen or sensed, the ribbon of water and bits of green at its bottom? He tracks it by familiarity and water-scent, attention more on their surroundings than the destination. Beasts could turn up at any time. "Yes, more or less, though I think Familiars are less bystanders and more ... sidekicks."
That's not the word he wants, but it'll do. He can't glide well carrying some two hundred pounds of well-muscled elf, and it's times like these he envied those who had eagle's wings instead. They were made for bearing heavy weights long distances. "But what she picks doesn't exactly line up with reality. Being a 'legend' doesn't make someone innately good, or a 'myth' innately bad, or familiars nothing more than lackeys. So far it seems kind of random." A judgment made because he is no hero.
He will never be a hero. What a bizarre choice for a killer and monster. "So if she wants a story, might as well make it a good one."
no subject
"Mm. Followers--Courtiers, we might say, back home. Those who serve by lending devotion." ...He'll need to think over the implications of NOT being one of those at a later time. Though maybe not too deeply, for as his ride says, there may be no real rhyme or reason to it.
Or the reasons may be more complex than the Fox's face-value explanation (what he remembers of it) implies. "This is so? I had thought my own assignment fitting.
"Do you find your own wrong?"
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As the canyon splits wide open, Sephiroth begins a controlled but rather quick descent, easily accomplished by simply closing his wings and allowing them to plummet out of the air; one thing he COULD do was use them as a parachute even if he couldn't soar for beans. "And what did she assign you? I see tusks, I think. Familiar?"
He hadn't shown any sign of his role when he first arrived, it took time to figure out the wings thing, and the iconic halo was.. very rare indeed. "... I do, yes. Legends are supposed to be heros, the things that stay in stories for centuries. I'm not, and I never will be." He says it as if it's simple fact, braking their fall again into a slow glide and angling gradually for the tangle of lush greenery along the river's edge. The rocks are easy enough to dodge, he's done this before. "I assume it's because of the fiction people have begun inventing about me. None of it is true, but everyone likes a tall tale."
no subject
He lapses silent after that--listening, and then waiting a breath-held moment as they descend until the youth's wings catch the air again. While he's no reason to fear a crash, this is still a (somewhat) novel mode of transport and takes a little getting used to.
"Do you know your own inerrant future, then? To say you might never become a hero, and have never been one?" A sad thought to think one so (apparently) young had given up on all possibility of better for himself--though Illarion knows better than to assume that such a judgment must be wrong, with how little information he has of the situation.
"I had thought the Fox brought us here to explore such futures we otherwise might not get--not so?"
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The silence that lapses when the future is asked about is in its own way telling, as there's no sudden attack or distraction to otherwise explain it. The scent of water and green is almost overpowering before he backwings rapidly in muffled beats to try to hover in place long enough to drop Illarion to the ground only a couple of feet, then land himself.
Grass underfoot, instead of dry desert. The tall canyon walls provide plenty of shade, at least. "Yes." He knew.. exactly what was coming. "My future is set. People have already come from beyond my time, and what happens here doesn't seem to have affected it. Perhaps this is ... the best she can do for me."
Peace, for a while. It never lasts. "But my fate isn't necessarily others'. The fewer people from your planet, the better your odds, I think."
no subject
He alights on the grass as he's dropped, and promptly hunkers down to bury both hands in it. Vegetation that hasn't been twisted or stunted by blood pollution... There was some in Trench, and there'd surely be more with Sleeper efforts over time, but it is a small marvel to experience here, out in the open and uncultivated.
Eventually the novelty will wear off. Eventually he'll be as accustomed to existing in an undamaged world as he was to a damaged one. But for now, he will take the scraps of pleasure he can grasp in the difference.
"You are certain that they are your people?" he asks at length, not raising his head--though he has cocked an ear in the youth's direction. "A strange question, I know--but the place I am last, there is a woman who is sometimes a sister that has known me from the egg.
"Except I am never having such a sister; I am my mother's only child." That he knew of, anyway--but Devyata had been raised alongside him, so she said, so an unknown sibling wouldn't fit the role.
no subject
The reaction to simple living plantlife is not expected, and watched with speculative curiosity. Maybe Illarion was from somewhere without them .. or simply since he couldn't see, he relied on touch to tell him what was there, other senses aside. For all that Folkmore could be harsh in Cruel Summer, life was everywhere to be found, from creeping insects to fish in the river and more. Monsters lurked too, but the ubiquitous harpies have learned the hard way to stay well clear of Sephiroth's range.
The filthy birds are still there though, at a significant distance, unbothered by the heat. "..I'm sure." Elves come from eggs? "Of course there's no way to be perfectly certain, but they are from the same timeline, and they .. know things." Things he'd demanded to know too. "There's little reason to think I'm different. I didn't realize elves were oviparous. I ... can't guess at the confusion having unexpected family would cause but if that's something that happens to me I think I'll be grateful."
With two mothers and a father who all sought to use him for their own ends, a thing to be experimented on or controlled.. maybe a sibling would be different?
no subject
It's said, largely, with affection; he had liked, much as he liked things, that Sleepers were so chatty and opinionated. It was useful. (And endearing, as much as it was frustrating.)
Having touched grass to his own satisfaction, Illarion shifts to sit back on his heels in a comfortable
Slavsquat. He angles his head toward his youthful interlocutor, not really looking but giving a polite impression of attention anyway."Ah--yes, this would be persuading me too. Though my, hm, sometimes-sister could answer a great many questions too." He tips out a hand in an equivocal gesture; he is not going to argue this too hard, because ultimately-- it is up to each of them to accept what stands as proof of someone really knowing their echt-self, and the world they really belonged to.
A little huff of amusement escapes him then, at the digression. "I know that I am, to have her. She is dear to me, sister or not. And, my sort of elf is of the blood of dragons and birds--so naturally, we are born of eggs. I understand this is being true of very few other sorts of elves."
no subject
Tiny fish appear to nibble at available toes, and he watches the flash of silver scales amidst the pebbles with unfocused interest. They never lingered long, got their nibble and left, he probably didn't taste good. Might be all the alien.
It strikes him that Illarion might be able to answer a question he's always had but never been able to actually ask anyone, because they never knew anything else to compare it to. This elf could. "When I hear 'dragon' I am thinking a winged, quadrupedal pseudoreptilian beast about fifty paces long that may or may not breathe fire."
And he's not seeing any scales! Or wings! And those still looked more like tusks than fangs, but he's been wrong before.
There's a long moment of fidgeting silence before he actually ventures the question. "What's it like, having a sibling?"
no subject
He tips his head toward the younger man, ((feeling)) and hearing him wade out into the water. A part of Illarion would like to follow... But he'd be a corpse in a body of living, which his religious sensibilities are still very uncomfortable with. Though--speaking of pets--he does have a possible workaround--if said workaround still exists, and truth be told he hasn't yet had a moment to check if she did.
It would be sad, if she were gone. But it would not be so bad a price to pay, his Darkblood for an uncorrupted world. He turns his face toward the sky, expression briefly abstracted as he rummages around inside his own soul--as it were--
And then there's a faint rustle, before an alabaster beak pokes itself out of the fall of his white hair, followed by the rest of his Omen. She eyes the hard blue desert sky with suspicion, before flitting down to land by the water. It shows through her; she is half a ghost, sparkling faintly where the light hits the strands of Darkblood making her up.
"Our dragons are elsewhere called dinosaurs, I have been told. 'Terrible lizards,' though most are not much like lizards. Many have wings, though only four limbs. Most have feathers."
The actual taxonomy of bird versus dragon (versus crocodile versus pterosaur versus...) is beyond his interest and study, so he is happy to leave it at that and settle into the silence that follows his explanation. His Omen tries to snatch a fish out of the river, and fails.
The question gets a thoughtful little noise out of him, followed by more silence as he turns it over in his head. It's a good question--one he'd not yet contemplated.
"Comforting, I think. But also--not. My childhood, it was not a good one." He does not elaborate; it's a lot to drop on a stranger.
"To know that in one of Generation's many dreamings, I did not spend it alone but had someone who loved me, that I also loved... That is very precious. But it also is waking in me great sorrow," or the thought that he should sorrow, could he, "to think that someone so dear to me should suffer as she did--as I did.
"It also is making me wonder, about who I became because I had her--I am almost fearing to ask, since he must be better than I."
There's a note of wry humor to the words.
no subject
It's in the midst of this that an unusual bird-insect creature appears from Illarion's hair, and is watched sharply to see what it might do before its - her behavior suggests to him some sort of pet. "I don't know what a dinosaur is," he admits, "But it sounds a bit like a dragon. Some have feathers but it's rare."
He continues to watch the not!bird while Illarion answers his question, unblinking. The behavior is birdlike, but the translucence is not. A spirit? Some were beasts, but others ..
Weightier is this idea that it's having someone love, and be loved in return. The boy has no frame of reference. He can make awkward guesses but that's all. A precious thing, a dear one beyond friendship, and how painful it must be to know they too hurt, he could at least make a better guess at that. "Some say sorrows shared are easier to bear. Maybe childhood would have been better."
Sephiroth doesn't know. Couldn't know. "..Is that what family does? Makes you better?"
A moth, he decides, in a detatched part of his mind. A moth with magpie additions. Or a magpie with moth leanings. A spirit.
no subject
Iskierka tries for another fish, and her talons pass harmlessly through it. She gives a gurgling cry of frustration, slapping at the water with her wings and doing little more than ruffling it. Not even as substantial as she'd been in the Waking World! This is intolerable!
The tiny tantrum doesn't last long before one faceted eye turns toward the young Legend soaking his own wings. She lofts herself over that way to inspect him, and decide if he is somehow capable of giving her food.
Illarion's expression, meanwhile, has taken the faintest pensive turn at the question. He does not answer it immediately--because he could, he could be glib about it and brush the question aside with a "yes". It's certainly the expected answer in most cultures; it's an ideal elves hold most fiercely.
But it isn't always true, and the boy sounds like he's asking for whole truths--however rough--rather than simple reassurance. "It is meant to be that way," he says at last, low and soft and anechoic. "When there is real love in it, to temper the power you hold over each other. Because you love them, and they you, it is natural to build each other up--to strive together for what is good.
"But that is not all families. Not all parents love their children, or see them as more than an appendage of themselves. A part, or a tool, to be shaped into whatever is most useful." Bitterness colors that last word, like bile on his tongue.
"These families--you are lucky, if they do not make you worse."
no subject
a mothersome other family member to lean on, would his own life feel as locked into being nothing more than a weapon? All he'd had are the scientists, and they certainly saw him as a tool.What must it be like, to have nothing, and then have a sister that cared? It seemed to be a mixed blessing for Illarion but mostly positive. The avian creature's unhappiness with not being able to catch a fish is a familiar but not sort of sound, and after a moment its cry is imitated, the wrong pitch, too low in the throat, but the second one is uncannily close. His knack for mimicry is a mostly unexplored thing, but sometimes could get a bird to come far closer than they otherwise might to investigate a potential 'rival' that something humansized surely could not be. As this one is a pet of some form it doesn't surprise him that he might be investigated more boldly, and he extends a hand to the moth-bird to see if it might land.
If it even could. "Your pet seems a little on the thin side." Transparent, even. And the behavior suggested this wasn't a typical thing. "Is it a night species?" Spirits here could be far stranger than simply being intangible during the daytime, it's possible.
no subject
The moment passes and she gives another dissatisfied warble, before hunkering down into an inert ball of feathers. Nothing is working and she doesn't want to try anymore. Hmph. (Enjoy your bird in the hand, Sephiroth.)
"My Omen," Illarion says, once she's done--with a hint of an indulgent smile on his face. "She is a part of myself, and I think she did not make the transition from our last world so smoothly. Ordinarily there is, mm, a little more to her.
"She wished to ask you for food but could not."
He pauses, considering something, before returning to a previous track: "You had no family, I take it. You are not so human as you appear to most, are you?"
It's...indelicate, but he does not think the younger man will be put off by that. And the shrike feels something perilously like a need to know about this young stranger who is bigger on the inside the way his own people are.
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But there's a pause at part of myself. Oh. Maybe he shouldn't try to pet it then. Her. Petting pets is fine, but petting people is inappropriate. "Oh, I.."
She's so intangible. "..I might be able to come up with something? But I don't know for sure." Food for a creature that's smoke and moth dust. "Do all your people have a bird?" It made sense, they were descended from birds, maybe there was just a part of themselves that was on the outside.
With one hand occupied by nearly-not-there avian, he fishes one handed through his pockets, briefly shaking his wings out a little to be rid of some of the water. It's worth a try at least, and he did carry a collapsable container for just these situations. A search that jerks to a stop at the question that follows with a jolt of adrenaline.
"You can tell?" It's a very, very quiet question. He wasn't, he knew he wasn't, but how does a blind person know that? Was it his connection to the Omen? "I won't hurt you unless attacked, I promise."
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Then, with a little more amusement-- "Nor if you cannot feed her. She is not needing to eat; she is being a glutton."
The bird-ball gives an oppressive little hum of annoyance about being called out on this. She otherwise does not move.
"No--or perhaps, I should say, I do not know what Omens my people would have, if they could summon them." Maddening answer, but-- "She is not from my own world, but the one I am coming from last. A creature of the blood magic there."
And ahh--there; while he cannot see any changes to the younger man's expression the shrike can ((feel)) what that jolt of alarm does for his heartbeat. Illarion shifts where he's crouched, not rising but spreading his hands with palms out in a silent gesture: I mean you no harm.
"I am also more than I appear," he explains, simply; a secret offered for a secret uncovered. "And do not speak of that often, nor will I share what I have noticed of you. But you are like one of my own people, that way--so I am curious to the point of rudeness."
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Not needing to eat and wanting to eat are different things, aren't they? If the moth bird is a part of Illarion, then Illarion eating was all that's required but maybe she had senses he didn't.
Maybe that's the way of seeing that didn't involve eyes. "No, it's not.. rude, I guess, it's just.." It made it harder to pretend he was anything but what he was. "..Most people don't really. Notice here." And if anyone on Gaia knew.. aside from his creator perhaps. "I'm ..." How to put this. "A created thing. Unnatural, so I don't have kith or kin. Having them would distract me from my duties anyway, so it's probably for the best." It absolutely is not for the best and he very much still yearned for even a scrap of what other people had by way of loving families but that wasn't his lot in life. "If it helps and I'm upsetting to be around, don't think of me as a person, and just think of me as a weapon that can talk."
That's how everyone in the lab did it, and it seemed to make them far more comfortable! The collapsable bowl is carefully unfolded and dipped into the river for water, then set down, spoon fished out a moment later. Back in may there was food for spirits, maybe he could duplicate one or two..
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Had he emotions, he recognizes, he'd be horrified on the younger man's behalf. His own childhood had begun in misery because his mother had wanted a thing, a trophy, a credit to herself, and she'd raised him thus. His undeath had only recapitulated that particular misery--to be raised as a weapon, and wielded by an uncaring hand.
Without Illarion's exactly noticing, he's developed a tail; several nearby tufts of grass lose their seedheads to an angry flick of its feathered length.
"What is upsetting is the arrogance and impiety of those who create children as weapons, and pretend they have no obligation to nurture them as any person deserves." Cuts a little close to the bone, doesn't it, o shrike? (They'd at least given their own offspring families. Their children were loved.)
He stands up, dully aware it doesn't feel right to simply hunker there when this is something he's acting (and maybe feeling, just a little) impassioned about. He steps down to the river's edge himself, turning his face toward the far side of it and frowning off into that distance. Iskierka pokes her head up, glancing in that direction, before turning her attention to the bowl of water. What's happening here?
"If it would not cause distress," Illarion continues, more quietly, "I would know more about what you were created from. Though this is curiosity in me, nothing more." So he'll hardly take offense if he doesn't get an answer.
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Different. "The only way to get an adult soldier is to deal with them growing to adulthood," is the quiet response. "I'm at least of age to be useful now."
He could wish for better, wish he had a normal family and a normal life but that wasn't possible. The only one who might extend anything like love to him is apparently the alien of his parents, and with her came the attempted annihilation of the planet. It's a nice thought, but it's.. inaccurate. What would he do with those kinds of attachments? It would get in the way. It's already gotten in the way. He can't afford those weaknesses.
Choosing wither or not to answer takes time. It's not comfortable to discuss, even knowing that other planets had vastly different ideas of what counted as monstrous and what did not. Meanwhile, a touch of lore is added, and from the bowl and spoon drawn a strangely ephemeral looking .. dog biscuit. It's not meant for flesh and blood creatures, but the countless other forms of life in Folkmore.
"Humans, partly. And a creature that invaded my planet thousands of years ago, decimating all life she encountered. What she didn't eat she corrupted. The .. survivors managed to imprison her in stone and stasis. Fifteen years or so ago she was rediscovered." And thus began the Jenova Project, of which he is apparently not the only surviving engineered child. "I've inherited some of her strength and powers." More than he knows, but he can't see beyond the physical. "I imagine the others will have too."
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A claim that requires he listen and think rather than give into fury over an evil he's encountered before. (Funny, that--that he's done no more than set foot in another new world and found the child of someone's hubristic project to make a weapon. Though Tabris at least had not been as...outwardly at peace with it.) The shrike breathes out through his fangs in a low hiss. "The world has need of much more than soldiers; it does not require them purpose-built. You are owed better."
...Ohhh, now what is this? Iskierka leans forward, extending a little talon to reach for the dog biscuit. This time, her claws don't pass through it; she gives a triumphant little chortle. Food! At last!
"Is this why you are saying you should not be a Legend? Because you are part-monster?" It isn't, actually, horrible reasoning from Illarion's perspective--a monstrous nature could indeed make one more of a danger to others--but it seems incomplete, coming from someone who would rescue a total and potentially dangerous stranger from the desert before even exchanging names.
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Acceptance would make the next decade or so more bearable.
The bit of food is surrendered easily to the little avian, and he sits back on his heels, wet feathers ruffled up to make use of the bitterly dry heat of the desert even this close to water. He'd need to do some thorough preening later, but for now it'd do. "..Among other things. I am ..." He pauses, thinking.
It has the air to it of trying to figure out how to translate something over into something others might understand than melancholy. "The people who created me have set me up as a ... false hero. Given me accolades I haven't earned. Outright made up a lot of them. To them and their subjects I'm 'a hero'. But I'm no such thing. And then here, wings mean Legend, and Legends are heros.. I think it's Thirteen's little joke."
Or a reminder that he couldn't shake off Shinra that easily. "I don't mind the feathers, they're .. hm, comfortable enough." And familiar in a way he didn't understand. "But the status is meaningless."
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"Mmm. So all your altruism, plucking strangers out of the desert--this is suspect to you, because you were made to inhabit a story of your own heroism?" That also something he can understand. Also disagree with--but understand.
Iskierka plucks up the biscuit gleefully and shoves it sideways in her beak. Not even any attempt to peck it into smaller pieces like a real bird might--it just goes right down the hatch like a crane with a frog. Gulp.
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