open | april/may catch-all

[industries]

WHO: Tony Stark & you
WHAT: April catch-all for open, planned, & future threads
WHERE: Free Cities - Cadens & Desert Outpost
WHEN: 4/05 - 4/30
WARNINGS: None yet.

NOTES: Although he left his world emaciated and malnourished from months adrift in space, Tony's body was rejuvenated to its normal state by the healing powers of being pulled to Abraxas. TL;DR he looks like his normal self, except more depressed.

▶ i. we are not soldiers
    Cadens Desert Outpost 003 - Wagon | Apr. 6
    [ open ]

[ The last wagon to Cadens only has a couple of seats left when its wheels finally roll and crunch against the sandy road. ]

Hey! [ The shout comes from the right side of the departure area, in the general direction of the barracks. The driver reins in the horses and a middle-aged man jogs up to the wagon, a standard issue knapsack slung over his shoulder. ] One more for – yeah, okay. [ He squeezes in, past a particularly miffed soldier. ] Uh, Private Pyle? 'Scuse me? Thanks.

[ The man drops into the empty seat across from you and sinks into it with a long, slow breath. Judging from his plain fatigues and lack of epaulets, he looks to be a newly-arrived Summoned, though he at least appears to have taken the time to trim his facial hair into a neat goatee. Although his eyes roam cooly across the passenger area, the white-knuckled grip on his knapsack's strap betrays the kind of sharp anxiety common to Abraxas' newcomers – and perhaps something more.

His eyes flit up to you as the horses whinny and the wagon rolls forward again. He frowns. ]

What. Not a Kubrick fan? [He rolls his eyes.] What am I talking about, "Arrival of a Train" is probably peak entertainment here.

▶ ii. we won, mr. stark
    Cadens - Mag's Inn | Apr. 7
    [ open + planned: peter, nadine ]

[ It's only when he sits down at the inn table that he lets himself breathe.

Okay. Okay.

Step completed, box checked off. He drags a hand down his chin, then splays that hand on the table, feels the wood-grain of its surface, old and polished from years of use. It feels real. Has heft, and tactility, enough to tell the mechanoreceptors in his fingertips and the neurons in his thalamus that he's here. This is real. But that doesn't mean they couldn't be lying to him, because how-

Last thing he remembers, with relative clarity, is Steve Rogers' face. The rage rising up his throat, boiling over, barely standing, shaking. The arc reactor in his hand. Liar.

The last thing he remembers, with more bleary haze, is light streaming through glass windows, Pepper's hand over his. Slowly blinking at her face, her creased brow. The answer to a dozen sleepless nights on the Benatar: Alive.

Then – floating in water. And he was here – healthy again, and away from home... again. In... what? A glorified steampunk convention? Las Vegas' most dedicated LARPer club? He'd kind of hoped so, until the outpost wagon neared a city out of some YA fantasy and kicked him to the curb.

He closes his eyes and rubs his hands over his face. Footsteps approach the table.]

Not hungry – starved for a month on a spaceship, you know how it goes – hey, [ he presses the back of his thumb against his eye, ] so I heard you guys do a care package?

▶ iii. wildcard
    [ open + planned: sam ]

Keeping to two prompts for now since I'm not sure if Tony's going to find out... certain information.

Regardless! If you're jonesing to thread something in particular with Tony, please don't hesitate to drop it here! Also feel free to hit me up at LaCidiana, DM me, or PM this journal if you want to ask about anything. ♥

Comments

[industries]

"Peace summit," Tony echoes. Sam had filled him in pretty, uh. Thoroughly? Horrifyingly? On everything from back home, but Tony's guessing that by the end of their drinks, he no longer had the enthusiasm (or sobriety) to explain the minutiae of the political situation here. It was all Tony could do to extract himself from the apartment and walk back down the stairs, despite the fact that Sam had assured him "Mag" had gotten a bed ready for him. Laying down, alone, with his thoughts right now – sounds to Tony like the scariest experience imaginable since he first woke up in this particular corner of multiversal hell.

Anyway. Can't blame Wilson for covering all the bases. And this girl – Inej – for how young she looks, she speaks with all the poise and analysis of a BBC commentator, which, Tony figures, means she might be a good source of info. Assuming that her beyond-her-years intelligence doesn't also extend into her ability to harbor ulterior motives.

"Take it from someone with experience?" Tony gestures. "People only plaster 'peace' in big letters when there's been a distinct lack of it. But – interesting, okay, so–" He narrows his eyes. "This whole 'Summoned' phenomena, a.k.a. why we're all here – the people back at the outpost said we're 'important' and they're 'grateful,' yaddah yaddah – but... what about everywhere else? Is every faction actually harnessing this–" he searches for the word, snaps his fingers, "'Singularity' thing, or just attributing some kind of higher meaning to a random rip in spacetime?"

[shadowthief]

"Oh, I don't doubt that. These factions have centuries of bad blood between them, any tenuous peace they may be play-acting at right now will break at the first imagined political slight." She's no stranger to the whims of war, and she's talked with Sam already about the very, very real possibility of things taking a turn for the worse sooner rather than later.

She nods a little, "Yes, the people who pulled me into Solvunn had a similar spiel about being chosen or important, things like that. I think all of them have something like that, that they say to try to put people at some kind of ease." The tone in her voice suggests it did not put her at any kind of ease at all.

"The best I understand, each faction has their own agenda with the Singularity. They all want the power for different reasons, Solvunn is a farming community, but they are also deeply religious. I wasn't there long enough to find out much, but there are a lot of references to... Old Gods, rituals performed in homes and during festivals in the town, superstitions that are followed, with a pretty decent reliance on magic. I think they may want to wake these...Gods.

"Cadens, as I'm sure you've already noticed, is much more military-focused, and much more reliant on technology than, I think, either of the other two. Thorne I know much less about, other than every single thing I've heard from anyone that's been there is utterly wretched. Keeping people as captives in dungeons and the like. Don't think I'll be going there any time soon."

This, she finds, feels more natural than a lot of things she's done since arriving here. The exchange of information is a little bit like coming home. Even though he's the wrong person, and the information is the wrong type, it's close enough.