[OPEN] july catcahll

[lightkeeping]

Who: Aloy and YOU
When: throughout July
Where: Solvunn, the Horizon
What: settling in, inadvisable camping, robot dinosaurs, whatever I WANT
Warnings: will list as needed

[open and closed starters in comments! If you want a custom starter or something specific, just hit me up. I’m on plurk at whitticus or on discord at whitticus#8139]

Comments

dino time

[wiedzminka]

[ Ciri doesn't tend to spend a lot of time in the Horizon, and its strangeness lately has put her on edge, making her even less inclined to visit. But on occasion, she still likes to go for a ride on Kelpie -- rather, what is basically the manifested memory of her favorite horse, at least -- where the illusion of familiar mountains is at once nostalgic and soothing.

In this case, she's decided to wander a bit farther out, too, having noticed a new domain with its own mountainous backdrop to observe. She has no interest in poking her nose into private-looking spaces behind doors, but wide open outside areas are free to roam, as far as her idea of Horizon etiquette is concerned.

And so, horsegirl encounters dinosaurgirl. Ciri hasn't the slightest idea what to make of such a steed.

In fact, having just recently met a similar two-legged, birdlike creature that was meant for riding instead of a horse, she jumps to entirely the wrong conclusions.

(Clearly, this is some sort of clockwork Chocobo.)

Ciri slows to a walk as she approaches, raising a hand in greeting. ]

Well met. Is this your domain?

[lightkeeping]

[Here's the thing about a post-apocalyptic earth reconstituted by a highly-advanced AI terraforming system: Aloy has never seen a real horse. She understands them in principle. Knows that Striders are a general machine approximation for horses, but ARTEMIS hadn't been able to repopulate animal life much bigger than a wild boar.

So, you know, maybe they just stare at each others' mounts for a few long moments.

Aloy isn't so rude, however, that she fails to recognize a greeting. She doesn't exactly lift her own hand in response, but she does pull on the Clawstrider's reins to bring the machine to a stop. She's still wrapping her mind around a lot of things, about the Horizon.]

I guess so. I'm still feeling it out. [She doesn't remember making most of it, only adding the base and more intimate locales after her second trip here, and she's seemingly bewildered by the sheer scope of the mountainous backdrop that her subconscious somehow filled in, without any real memory of it.] Who's your friend?

[wiedzminka]

[ Ah, a woman who knows how to have an interesting conversation. Talk about horses, of course.

Ciri smiles, leaning forward in her saddle a bit to stroke her mare's glossy black neck. She's a beautiful horse, sleek and elegant, her mane and tail kept long. The latter twitches impatiently; her ears flick toward the new person and strange mount, and she snorts in a way that sounds more like warning than unease. Ciri shushes her. ]

Her name's Kelpie. She was my favorite horse on the Continent I came from.

And your... friend? I've seen a large bird meant for riding before, but not a mechanical one.

[lightkeeping]

[Aloy is not going to be so presumptuous as to think she can outright pet a stranger's horse (even if it is not a real horse), so Kelpie gets a little smile and Ciri a nod of recognition. She doesn't understand much about this place, but she is picking up on the fact that most people recreate things from home. Pets from home too, it seems like.]

Oh, uh... [It occurs to her that this is probably going to be a little hard to explain.] This is a machine called a Clawstrider. It doesn't have a name.

[Or, at least, not a name like one might name a pet. Maybe she should have named it? Oh, no.]

[wiedzminka]

Really? [ Ciri looks genuinely surprised. For some reason, the thing being a machine was second to it being this woman's mount, and a proper mount should have a name. Even Dean's big metal carriage-thing has one. ]

That's a pity.

You should think of one.

[ Important social requirements to foist onto a newly-met stranger. Nailed it. ]

[lightkeeping]

Well, it’s not…a pet?

[There’s no good way to explain that her mounts are often damaged or destroyed during her adventures, though it’s possible Ciri wouldn’t mind something like that, given the fact that the machine is only meant to mimic animal behavior through its AI—it’s not alive, necessarily. This one, she figures, is even less so, given that she’s literally conjured it here out of her memory.

Also difficult to explain. She provides a little smile, though it’s awkward around the edges—pulled just a bit too tight.]

But I’m open to suggestions.

[wiedzminka]

[ Ciri, who has no concept of AI or machines of this sort, just sort of shrugs. ]

A friend of mine named his car. Do you know what a car is?

It's not alive either, so I'm not sure why.

Are there machine horses for you to ride where you're from too?

[lightkeeping]

I know what a car is.

[That gets a laugh out of her. She's never seen a working one, but it's easy enough to imagine the rusted-out hulls of old world vehicles the way they once were. Suffice it to say, she finds machines much more efficient--not beholden to highways or other infrastructure.]

Yeah, sort of. [Striders are the closest approximation. Aloy is still getting used to bending the Horizon to her will, but remembering things that try to kill her is easy enough. The dinosaur-like creature she's riding shifts, metal plates and carbon fiber rearranging until it's a different machine entirely, equine in nature.] We don't have real horses, where I'm from. This is as close as we get.

[That does, however, imply that she knows what a horse is, and what it's supposed to look like. Kind of.]

[wiedzminka]

Are all animals where you're from machines?

[ On the one hand, the machine bird-thing is fascinating and Ciri's trying to imagine a clockwork horse now. On the other... that is kind of sad. She's talked to other people who don't have horses where they're from, but they hadn't known what a horse even is. Saying they don't have real horses points to something else entirely. ]

[lightkeeping]

Not all of them.

[There's something a little sad in the way she says it, not that she's going to elaborate--it's too long of a story anyway, and if Ciri comes from a place without the concept of machines or AI or everything else, it's just going to take longer.

And, besides, it's not exactly a good topic for a first meeting.]

Smaller animals. Birds, fish, rabbits. But I guess in here we can have anything we want, huh?

[wiedzminka]

[ Not all. But most, it seems, the way she says it. Ciri catches the note of something melancholy, but doesn't linger on it. The last part is all that matters right now.

She smiles. ]

That is true. I can show you all sorts of beasts and creatures that exist in my world.

My name's Ciri.

Don't suppose you're in Cadens?

[lightkeeping]

Aloy.

[Her smile is pulled a little tight, like she's not quite used to these kinds of casual interactions, but Ciri is friendly enough, so she reciprocates, even if it's a little awkward. She does, however, seem genuinely interested in the offer.]

No, Solvunn. [For better or worse. She hasn't quite decided.] So I guess we'll have to talk about them in here, for the time being.

[wiedzminka]

Solvunn.

[ That's on the rarer side. Not many Summoned there, to Ciri's knowledge. ]

Then you must know Nero. He showed me some monsters from his world in here, at the Roadhouse. Bit of an eccentric, but funny.

[lightkeeping]

[Aloy offers a shrug--she's a little ambivalent about Solvunn. Being made to work on a farm is not necessarily her idea of being useful, and the lack of any technology is an adjustment. That said, she's not sure if any other location is much better.]

Yeah, I know him. [Barely, but enough to consider him kind of a weirdo. Eccentric is probably a good word for it.] I'll tell him you said hi.