abraxaslogs | [ OPEN ] i know some places and i've seen some faces

[ OPEN ] i know some places and i've seen some faces

WHO: sam wilson and anyone/everyone.
WHAT: captain america cookout.
WHERE: sam's horizon domain
WHEN: third saturday of september (aka, about 3 weeks after the jailbreak)
NOTES: see below!

HELLO ALL AND WELCOME TO SAM'S CAPTAIN AMERICA COOKOUT!!!!

Over the last week or so, Sam has been going out of his way to contact as many people as he knows to invite them to a cookout at his place in the Horizon. He knows that after the jailbreak, a lot of people were separated, and this was his first thought on how to bring people together. The purpose behind it is simply because Sam thinks that the one thing all of them have in common, opinion on the Singularity and their situations aside, is that they were all brought here and can actually access the Horizon. He sees merit and use in coming together when they can, especially in ways that don't involve the politics of the land they're now living in. So, what better way to do that than around food?

The long and short of it is - this is a peace meal. Leave your issues at the door. Sam has very few rules and there is very little he will give in terms of what this cookout will entail, but three things he will make very clear:

1.) There will be no fighting at his home. You want to duke it out? Take it somewhere else. There will not be warnings or second chances. Don't be an ass.
2.) There is no meeting or serious reason for this cookout. Literally, he just wants people to come together who may no longer be able to see each other due to the travel constraints. It's meant to be fun. Come have fun. (he knows y'all know what that is, even when some of you pretend you don't). Bring food if you want to! There is also a kitchen (if you know what that is) and places to crash. Hope you like seafood!
3.) Anyone who can come into the Horizon is welcome. He'd love it if everyone came, so spread the word.

The cookout itself is set up out front, with picnic tables and chairs and fire pits and lights abound. There are tables set up near grilles if anyone wants to do any actual cooking outside, and a table (probably multiple) set up with sides and napkins and utensils. There are a variety of different places to go and sit and hang out while you're eating. Anything and everything you can want is available - food, drinks, yard games, music playing from out in the trees that will remain consistent unless someone tries to find the speakers and hijack the playlists, etc. If you can't find something outside, you're more than welcome to check the house.

All throughout the party, too, there will be a new friend. Red, as Sam fondly calls him, is a blood-red hunting hawk with silver in between the feathers. He can be found circling around Sam quite often, or perched on his shoulders, but also if you are out and about you can often see him checking up on anyone and everyone. He's a very curious little bird, and also pretty sassy, if you want to interact with him.

If you haven't, or have, been to Sam's domain before, feel free to take a look around. Anywhere is open (save for one locked bedroom) so everyone has open access, but most of the cookout itself will be located in the front yard.

OOC: This is mean to be an OPEN LOG, so leave your TLs or closed threads below! This party will last basically as long as people want it to, but the idea is for it to be an afternoon into the evening. Y'all have free reign save for destroying Sam's home, but if you have any questions, hit me up on plurk (disarmingly or disco (dai#3757). Sam's TL is below, and he will be bouncing around like the good host he is, but lets get a little party started.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Her husband. His eyebrow lifts, somehow not expecting it. Though, thinking back, he realizes he should. She'd dropped down to a particular set of cells often, hadn't she? He just hadn't exactly paid attention to who it was inside. Her husband, apparently.

"Stepped into the Free Cities." He studies her. How far outside of Thorne's influence is Nott? Interesting. It's the first he's heard of it, in fact. "They haven't tracked down his signature?"

How does that even work? All he knows is that it marks them, but he's yet to find a mage who can fully grasp its magic. But if it had reached as far as Hayle, so close to the mountains, he can't imagine Nott would be out of reach. So either Thorne hasn't cared to chase down a handful of lost prisoners—possible—or there's a reason they can't, or won't, enter Nott.

Nadine notices the raised brows.

"Yeah, I'm married. And just to head off the usual questions...I'm older than I look, and no I don't know why they only locked one of us up when we're a matched set."

Not that she hadn't gone over the question dozens of times herself, she just doesn't have an answer.

"And Nott is pretty far from Thorne City or whatever they call the city around the castle. It took a week on horses to get there. They don't seem to have much communication with the castle or anything. From what I understand the local government knows we're there. That guy who came to the castle for the festival, he sent us all invitations to meet with him. I didn't go, but I know some people who did. They said no one seems concerned about us being here..."

Nadine just doesn't know. Maybe she should have met with that guy, the mayor or whatever he was. She doesn't understand the local government. But when you're a fugitive in hiding, the last thing that seems like a good idea is walking into the local government center and meeting with one of the big dogs.

His initial reaction had just been born out of the fact that he hadn't realized a married pair had been summoned, but when Nadine says older than I look, as if she's been questioned over it before, that turns into a genuine curiosity. She smells human, in here, but perhaps there's more to her. There must be, if the bones of her domain were anything to go by.

"Seems to be a common theme around here," he says. No one knows a damn thing. The city-states will do what they will; go to war as they desire. Thorne having a splintered allegiance with one of its own is interesting, though. Worth keeping in mind. Perhaps Relena was right when she said the queen was desperate. Maybe Thorne's ruling family has been losing their grasp on their people more than they've let on.

He turns the bottle in his hand, considering. "I can't say how much safer anyone else is outside of Thorne. Suppose we'll have to see."

"Yeah. I don't know how safe any of us are, really." She shakes her head, just feeling tired by it all. "I'm still adjusting to being here, this world...it's not anything like mine. And things weren't great in mine anyway, so there's just been a lot to deal with."

Not even addressing more personal issues. Which she isn't, not with someone she barely knows.

"I tried to learn what I could at the castle, but it was hard finding any actual helpful information."

He glances at her. His nod is understanding, even if he says nothing more on it. Hard to feel safe after everything. But then, he's never lived his life without watching his back. This is just more of the same, here. Some of the others, he expects, haven't got the same experience.

"Thorne ran a tight ship," he replies. "Everyone learned fuck all."

The way he says it implies he's spoken to enough people to conclude that the lack of information isn't contained to only a small pocket. It's everyone, from prisoners to guests. He can count on one hand those who possessed information truly worth a damn: Jon Sims, Himeka, and Relena. Two were prisoners; Jon nearly lost his head. It tells him that any guest who remotely tried to keep a low profile would've uncovered little.

Thorne's not their biggest problem, in any case. Between mysterious benefactors wielding portals and the tensions around the Singularity, he imagines there's more at play here. None of which he wants to deal with right now, so his thoughts turn toward something else: why Nadine fled into hiding inside Thorne's territory.

"You didn't trust the portals?"

"It's more like...better the devil you know than the devil you don't. Thorne is not a good place to be, but at least we know it. Understand how things work here. And it feels like whatever answers there are, they're probably here."

Nadine isn't about to start talking about desired vengeance against the authorities in the castle. No one needs to know about that. There are some who are loyal to the Thornean government, not that she can understand that.

But to each their own. She doesn't know where Geralt falls, but it's just smart to keep some things quiet.

"So I guess we just didn't trust where the portals would take us."

Not a good place to be is about as diplomatic as it gets. He makes a soft sound, but like her, he isn't here to engage who falls on what side. It isn't important to him. Or it is, but he knows, when the time comes, he'll find out whether he wants to or not. Until then, his sole focus has been on keeping his people in one piece.

Besides, he gets what she means. Geralt is more familiar with this world than most, and even he feels lost on occasion. They'd been given a handful of words and an hour to make their choices. There was never meant to be a right one in the first place.

"Neither did I," he admits. "Half expected to be dumped in the middle of the sea."

Or to not make it out the other side at all. Leap of faith, as it were. The mages hadn't lied about the portals. Maybe that counts for something. At this stage, it's impossible to tell.

"But the portals worked? You're in the Free Cities now, you said? What are they like?"

Nadine's heard very little about them, beyond knowing they exist and are apparently beyond the reach of Thorne. It would be good to know more, to get a better understanding of global politics.

She has no idea how long they're going to be here, after all. Or what consequences taking action against Thorne's authorities may cause on a much greater scale. Geralt seems like the sort of person who pays attention to things and would be able to give her actual information.

"Came out in one piece." Yeah. They worked.

As for what the Free Cities are like—that's more complicated. On the surface, he's gathered they're like any large city. Filled to the brim, unfamiliar faces all around. Easy to slip into the crowd. Underneath, it's hard to say. Sam's told him the Prime Minister is aware of their arrival and what Thorne might've been up to, which means the military is, too. So it's only that they're being left alone for now. He doesn't know how long that'll hold, especially if tensions are only going to keep growing.

He draws in a breath. It's less that he doesn't want to tell her and more that he's not one to want to say much in general, regardless of the topic. After a second, he settles on the most important observation he's made since his arrival.

"Far less magic. Almost like they'd prefer to avoid it—or can't access it as readily as Thorne."

"Yeah? I thought magic was all the rage in this world..."

But again, Nadine only has knowledge of Thorne. And magic is very popular there.

"Even in Nott, they seem to practice a different kind of magic than the mages in the castle, but there's a lot of it." Her own goes practically unnoticed, and no one bats an eye to her practicing in the alley behind the cheap inn they're staying at.

"So did I." He knows the strength of the Singularity isn't any less. Jaskier can use the magic as readily as he had in Thorne. There're just fewer people willing to make use of it, or open to making use of it.

Given the Cities' stance on the Singularity, it only makes sense. Why destroy something you're relying on? That they're separating themselves from relying on magic means they're. Preparing. Aren't they? It's a theory, at best. He keeps it to himself for now.

He looks over. "Different." He considers. Hm. Magic's magic, but he knows not all those capable of wielding it see it as simple as that. There are different schools of practice, back home. "Like druids?"

"Um, I'm not sure what sort of magic druids actually do." Nadine offers an apologetic expression along with the admission. Druids are, to her, just some old vaguely mystic people who may or may not have built Stonehenge.

"But it's not as...neat, I guess? They don't seem to be using set spells like they do in the other parts of Thorne. I need specific hand gestures and the same words every time to do anything, but that's not how mages do it here."

Not as neat is about as vague as it comes, but there are more than a handful here who've never encountered magic in their lives. Even Geralt, surrounded by it as he is, he doesn't know everything about it. He isn't a trained mage.

Still. He wonders if there's something about how Thorne chooses to approach magic that's split its citizens. That's what it all seems to be coming down to, isn't it? What to do with the power that fills this land, what it can offer?

"Sounds like they're untrained." That's the only thing he can think of, though it's impossible to say without observing for himself. "You didn't have magic before coming here?"

"That's what I mean, though. They know what they're doing, it's just...I don't know, like a kid coloring in a picture in lifelike detail and a kid drawing the same picture from scratch. One of them is following these specific lines and instructions, the other one's just making it all themselves. They both have talent, they've both learned what they're doing and getting the same result, but they're doing it differently."

Nadine isn't sure quite how to describe it, not having enough experience with magic to understand the differences between Academic Magic and Wild Magic. She doesn't even know all the proper terms yet.

"And not...not really. Magic really isn't that much of a thing where I come from. It exists but a lot of people don't really believe in it. There aren't many people who can use it, I guess you'd say. Or even know it's possible. But I've had experience with it for most of my life."

Unfortunately, Geralt's reached the depth of what he can put together with her description. Nadine gets a contemplative sound before he seems to let the subject go for now. It's important, probably. Or will be, at some point. He just doesn't know where the pieces fit right now. Seems to be a lot of that since they've arrived.

He turns his attention instead to her. How she explains magic as she knows it back home. He thinks of the shadowed children, her odd blank landscape. Her insistence on keeping them safe inside there. It'd made sense to him at the time, lacking any real experiences he could remember to draw upon. The whole concept of it. Now that he's himself again, he's realizing it says a hell of a lot. Something he isn't sure of yet, but which isn't...usual. To most people.

"Experience," he repeats. "In using it?"

"Uh...sort of."

Nadine chuckles, a little awkwardly, and tucks a stray bit of hair behind her ear. How to explain her experience with 'using' magic?

"More just being around it, I guess you could say. I could do like one thing before here, and it wasn't something particularly powerful or useful in most situations. And I wasn't doing it on my own, anyway."

Now, though...now she's gotten quite the taste for doing magic on her own.

An edge of interest sharpens his expression. He takes her in a second time. It isn't common, at least to him, for someone to be evasive about their magic without good reason. Perhaps, rare as it is in her world, she's learned to keep it quiet.

For a moment or two, Geralt weighs if he should ask it. If he should ask whether that someone is her husband, or if it's to do with the children he'd seen. He doesn't know, for certain, but it feels like an option, like it could be the answer to Who were you doing it with? But they're only talking without any real purpose. She is not a contract he's working on. He'd rather not make presumptions that might provoke.

"I was only ever around it, as well," he says instead. "Magic's not as easily accessed as it is here."

His Signs, he truthfully doesn't count as magic. They're spells, but nothing near the actual magic of a mage.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ OPEN ] i know some places and i've seen some faces

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject