INTRO LOG #2

[abraxasmods]

Intro Log #2

It has been two months now since the initial group of summonings first took place. Castle Thorne, or at least the part above ground, is buzzing with a vibrant air of hope following the 'success' at the Singularity. Eager smiles and excited chattering are to be found in nearly every corner of the castle and surrounding town. The honored guests may find grateful looks turned their way more often than not. A new and brighter day seems to be dawning on the kingdom.

In the dungeons it's a different story entirely. The mood is somber and uneasy. The prisoner taken for trial has yet to return, and no word has come regarding her or her fate. There has been no mention of any further trials as of yet and guards seem to have little patience for unruly behavior or even conversation. Some seem to not even look at or acknowledge the prisoners at all.

[ Feel free to continue threads from the TDM here or start your own! As cell and room assignments will be short-lived due to this month's event, you're free to assume whichever cellmates and roommates you like instead of officially signing up as long as there are ICly no more than four people in a cell or room at once. ]

Comments

[gynvael]

[ The leather ball bounces towards him. He catches it in a hand. His eyes don't leave her as he does, roaming over her casually; in the right light, they glint an almost animal yellow. The shine of her appearance makes him think nobility, but the foreign drawl of her coarse speech seems otherwise. Interesting. ]

Keen on theft already? [ He sends the ball back. The faintest note of amusement colours the flatness of his words. ] Give it another week, at least, before you make trouble.

[ This new group has been both concerning and curious. Not as many as previous, which suggests the summonings have either been refined or have grown more conservative. Either way, it means Thorne has granted its pet mage to press forward with whatever plans they've cooked up. Not the most comforting of thoughts.

Still. Plans moving forward often leave gaps in the structure, too. ]

[princessvegas]

[ Nobility, hedonistic assholes -- the only difference really is the post-apocalyptic part of it all. Her place in the new society could be more or less equated to nobility, sure. But she did have pink hair before that, bleached and dyed in her bathroom at home before Captain Trips. She likes to stand out.

So Geralt's appearance doesn't phase her much, except maybe his eyes, because she's never seen a color like that, at least not without costume contacts. And who would bother to keep those in while in prison? Only someone who really doesn't value the health of their eyes.

She catches the ball and returns it again with a snort.]

Nah, not keen on it, but I ain't opposed. Besides, I wouldn't call it theft. These balls don't belong to any of us. But I'm okay with this one if you are.

[ Smiling brightly, she tosses him a wink, effortlessly flirty. ] I'm Julie Lawry.

[gynvael]

[ There's a hum that passes for a reply to that. For a second, his attention drifts, distracted. It returns to her soon enough -- in time to catch both ball and wink. His head tips to the side, a faint lift to his brows. A flicker across his expression suggests it isn't unwelcome, despite the lack of any real response on his end.

Under simpler times, maybe, she might've gotten a hint more out of him. She's certainly not hard on the eyes. (Never mind that it's been too damn long since the last time anything could be called simple.) ]

Geralt of Rivia. [ A pause as he considers. The ball bounces across the ground between them. ] When they dragged you in. What were you doing?

[ He's yet to find anyone who'd simply been sleeping peacefully. They'd all been ripped away in the middle of something. Something important. ]

[princessvegas]

[ For a billion different reasons, Julie can relate to nothing being simple in ages. Let alone the whole "imprisoned in a different world" thing -- shit has been completely crazy since the first few people started swelling up and suffocating on their own mucus, leaving whole towns full of corpses behind.

Not that Geralt of Rivia could possibly relate to that part of the insanity.

And of course he immediately asks her about the most fucked up aspect of it all. What had she been doing? Ha, how can she possibly explain that oh, no big deal, she was just murdered by, ostensibly, a vengeful God? How can she even begin to describe the complete madness of her final few moments on Earth?

Her smile falters as she catches the ball, inhales sharply. She looks away and pushes her hair from her face. ]

Um, nothin'. I wasn't doin' anything, really.

[gynvael]

[ Now that's a reaction. His eyebrow lifts higher. ] Doesn't sound like nothing.

[ It's said lightly enough, without pressing. He gets it; sharing his last moments with a stranger hasn't been on his list of items to mark off, either. All he's ever told anyone is that he'd been travelling through the woods. A truth that isn't a truth at all.

Still. She has him curious—or maybe it's simply an easy distraction, grasping the loose ends of someone's story to tie what he can together. A familiar task he's done a thousand times. (And one that he's tired of doing when it comes to whatever tangled bullshit Thorne has up its multi-world sleeve.) So he offers a little more, on his part. Just to see. ]

Can't be worse than a city or two gone ablaze.

[princessvegas]

[ As far as she can tell, she was already dead before they pulled her out of the fountain, so she wasn't exactly lying. She really had been doing literally nothing at all. But it's a question that you don't ask without a reason, especially within minutes of meeting them, so she turns it back around. ]

Why? Were you doin' somethin' special before they got you?

[ Honestly, she hadn't thought to ask anyone else about it. It simply didn't seem that important. She's learned that they can be taken from different points along their perspective timelines, though -- she's from a group of four, but only three of them lived to see the second ending of the world.

She bounces the ball back to him, huffing out a laugh that has little mirth behind it. ]

A few cities on fire would be paradise compared to where I come from.

[gynvael]

Just looking for someone.

[ It's an answer, of sorts, and one that suggests Geralt doesn't give too much of a shit about sounding cagey about it himself. They all have their secrets. Or matters he'd rather not get into, more like, if only for the sake of saving both Julie and he from the headache of explaining. The whole damn thing's too tangled even for him to deal with half the time.

He catches the ball, holding it for a second. It turns in his hand, once, before he lets it go back. ]

And where would that be, that's so unpleasant?

[princessvegas]

You find 'em?

[ It's said more conversationally than out of true interest. Julie had also entered into this world with many people she already knew, so it's possible that maybe he found them here instead of in his own home. She also asks no follow up questions about who they are or why he was looking for them -- this is pure small talk. ]

Oh, it's regular ol' Earth, I guess. Vegas. But we just got through Captain Trips, it was like a plague. Superflu. It killed more'n ninety-nine percent of all human life. Most animals too. So... there ain't a lot left to burn.

[gynvael]

No. [ Just as well, she isn't deeply interested, because—beyond a shadow of hesitation that lingers behind that word—that's all she's getting out of him.

Vegas should ring a bell; it doesn't. Lloyd hadn't named to him that eerie place Geralt had stumbled into in the Horizon, full of ostentatious furnishings within and an unlit, colourless grey without. The plague, though—that does spark familiarity. Well. A plague. Everyone always thinks they lived through the one. Maybe, for their lifespan, they have.

Not that he's unsympathetic. He's ridden through towns and cities, even entire kingdoms, decimated by some plague or other—all of it ugly. But it's not occurred to him she means it literally: life within the earth in its entirety. To him, it's impossible to confirm something of that magnitude. News does not travel that far, that easily. ]

But not you. [ Her decorated nails don't speak of someone previously on their deathbed. Nor of someone who's been wading through the remnants of death and decay, really. It has him considering her for a moment. ] Suppose that is more shit than some flames.

[princessvegas]

No, not me. Trips took out damn near everythin', even dogs and cats, most animals. But a few of us are just... immune.

[ There's no known reason why some people are immune. Most of the people who could study the phenomenon are dead anyway. Everyone else is just focused on surviving.

She looks at the ball in her hand, running her thumb over it before she bounces it back to him. There's a beat before she volunteers more. ]

I'm not originally from Vegas. My real hometown, it was a little nothin' town miles away from anything important. I was the only person there who didn't die. Took a month before anyone came through, I was alone the whole time. Just me and the bodies.

[ There had been so many bodies, huge and swollen and festering, and she couldn't move them all on her own. To escape, she'd lived in a warehouse store, free of corpses by virtue of having shut down before they all keeled over. ]

[gynvael]

[ He's quiet as she speaks, listening at the same time he's working out exactly what her world looks like. He's met humans who live amongst no one else but their own kind and common animals. No monsters. Untouched by the Conjunction.

Not spared from corpses piling, though. A flicker of understanding crosses his face. ]

When I was a boy, we had no one left for the bodies, either. We let the frost take care of it. [ It was not the first time he'd seen the way blood darkened across the snow, but it's the one he remembers with the most clarity. He hangs onto the ball for a few seconds. Contemplates what path she might've walked that would've taken her from a small town full of rot to...where? There's something he's missing. It sparks his interest—though not enough to push when they're barely acquainted.

Instead, he bounces the ball back in a gesture that seems to pass for a shrug. As though there's not much to put into words and even less by way of empty, bullshit platitudes he doubts she'd care to hear. ] Sometimes your one good fortune lies in the weather.

[princessvegas]

[ She's not waiting for any kind of sympathy -- the truth is that she likes her life much better this way. Sure, the world as she knew it ended, but it was what allowed her to take the reins and create the life she wanted.

She catches the ball with a scoff, and there's a little bit more heat when she sends it back to him. ]

Too bad it was the middle of summer when the outbreak happened. Took months to get the smell of death outta my nose. [ Well, months and a lot of cocaine. ]

What's your world like?

[gynvael]

[ For a second, his thoughts are elsewhere—not exactly bothered by this talk of death and bodies, but something about it has him sifting through memories he rarely acknowledges. He lets the ball fly directly into his hand, blinking once as the question is turned on him. ]

Mm. [ How to sum it up? Funny, now that he thinks about it, that she's the first to have asked him this. ] Monsters, people. Plenty of trees. Too many kings.

[ Nothing spectacular—though the shift in seasons since he's been here continues to bother him on an almost instinctive level. Nothing says the seasons are supposed to line up when crossing worlds, but. Still. They were heading into winter, and yet the summer sun has shone in Thorne for the past two months. ]

[princessvegas]

Monsters, no foolin'? You mean like vampires and shit, werewolves? That's crazy.

[ For her, it's the stuff of movies and TV shows, books. But then again, in the past year, she's learned that all kinds of things are out there that she doesn't understand. She's seen her cult leader idol fly and appear out of nowhere. Also he eats people sometimes, when he's angry.

She is completely captivated with the man.

Stretching her legs out in front of her, she leans back on her hands, glancing over at the treetops she can barely see in the distance. Vegas doesn't have trees, not really. She's missed them. ]

What about technology and stuff? Or are you guys still all Middle Ages like these people?

[gynvael]

[ A lift to his eyebrows as he pauses. Out of everyone who's made known that monsters existing is a startling fact to them, none have actually named the ones in his. ]

You've heard of them. [ But not seen them, it sounds like. Perhaps they were once there and long faded into myth. Who knows?

As she sits back on her hands, he gives the ball a spin between his. ]

This world isn't as foreign to me as it appears to be for some. If that's what you mean.

[ Not that he's been granted much of a view of it through the bars. Though the magic that saturates this land—he's gathered they rely on it more than anyone on the Continent for their needs. ]

[princessvegas]

Well, yeah. They’re like the original monsters, I’m pretty sure every place has their own versions. Then you got zombies and ghouls and all kinda other bogeymen. It must be super scary and dangerous to have ‘em wandering around in real life.

[ She smiles at him, clicking the toes of her awful prison-issued sandals together. Her toenails match her fingernails, and her ankles swim in the loose, itchy pants. She chuckles. ]

So that just means there’s a ton of stuff you haven’t tried. It ain’t been invented yet.

[gynvael]

[ The original what? He looks vaguely amused. What in the hell is she going on about? It's not unlike telling him she believes a bear is the original forest animal. They're not...they just—exist. ] Are monsters only stories to you?

[ He doesn't add—it's true, they're dangerous, but they've long dwindled, too. Really, he's met men who've killed far more than some beast hibernating in its cave deep in the woods. But that's neither here nor there. ]

Does it? [ The yet is interesting. None of them come from the same sphere, and he imagines what's invented in one may never need to be created in another. Still. He thinks of the strange things he stumbled over in the Horizon; it isn't the first time he's wondered what else is out there.

He finally tosses the ball back to her. ] Enlighten me some time.

[princessvegas]

Only stories. If anything like that existed where I’m from, no one has ever been able to prove it. And even if they were real, they’re probably dead now anyway. Like I said, superflu killed most animals too.

[ She catches the ball, considering what life would be like without modern conveniences. Living through the collapse of society was bad enough, but at least she’d been able to shower through most of it.

She thanks her lucky stars that she was born in the 1990s and not the 1490s. ]

Oh, I plan to, sugar. Dungeon’s not exactly conducive to fun. And my world is fun.

[gynvael]

[ There's a thoughtful noise in reply. One way to look at it. ] Stories come from somewhere.

[ Even he's had folk refuse to believe in some creatures or tell of ones that never existed; supposes it isn't that unusual Julie might live in a world where no one thinks they were ever real. If the monsters simply died out long before her time. They're just about there on the Continent as it is.

He gives a quiet snort. My world, she says, as though she's not spent the past minutes telling him of its plague-swept corpses. Fun. A purely morbid remark, maybe. He lingers on that a second or two—leaves it for another time.

His gaze settles on her, deadpan as ever. ] Without vampires or werewolves? Hard to imagine.

[princessvegas]

[ Her mistake for not clarifying better -- she means her world now, in the new society she's joined, where she's a member of the chosen, absolutely hedonistic elite. Life is pretty great when all that's expected of you is to party as hard as you want, 24/7.

Life outside of the Inferno, though, that's another story. She refuses to go back to it.

She giggles. She's watched enough movies to know that the only thing vampires and werewolves are good for is, apparently, an exotic fuck before you inevitably have to kill them. Or, y'know, marry them. Tossing the ball back, she brushes her hair over one shoulder, running her fingers through the ends to loosen the tangles from not having access to conditioner and hairbrushes. ]

It's only fun 'til one of 'em takes a bite outta you.

[gynvael]

[ Fair. Though a part of him had almost expected her to have stated it the other way around. Certainly a handful back home who feel the same.

The ball lands back in his hands. He watches the bounce of her tangled waves, the way her nails catch the sunlight. Tries to imagine her walking through this dying world she talks of, and still can't quite. ]

What do you have, then?

[ It's a superficial curiosity, but curiosity nonetheless. No animals, few people. Must be something, if she's finding life suits her well. (What are they even eating, without any animals thriving?) ]

[princessvegas]

[ Julie prefers her vampires and werewolves on TV and played by gorgeous Hollywood actors, thanks very much.

She beams, like the very thought of New Vegas makes her deeply happy. And she was happy, she thinks, even if it was occasionally dangerous there. Beats the hell out of Pratt, even before the plague. ]

We got everything you could ever think of. No rules, no shame. No more feelin' like the whole world has just got its boot on your neck. I mean, why live with all the bullshit when you're the last people on Earth, right?

In Vegas, you do whatever you want, whenever you want. Eat, drink, fuck, fight, it doesn't matter. And Vegas was an amusement park for grown-ups before Trips ever got there, anyway.

[gynvael]

[ The pieces fall into place, suddenly. His expression does not change; there's just a vague noise of acknowledgement. She'd hardly be the first to despise living under laws decided by others within their high castle. ]

If you were only ever bound by its rules, then you were never meant long for that world either way.

[ If the plague had not driven her to this fringe society she's seemingly found for herself, something else would've sooner or later. Matters little, in the end. There's a faint level of wariness when he looks at her, born more out of the fact that he still hasn't fully pinned her down than the idea of anything she may or may not have done. He doesn't know, at the moment, what those things are. Doesn't want to know, either. His life is far simpler when he just does not know certain things about people unless he's specifically being paid to find out. (Even then, half the time, it isn't worth the coin.)

Which he isn't. He's just here to throw this ball and avoid Yennefer until they're locked back up again. ]

[princessvegas]

That world was the only option before. You wanna stay fed and safe, you do what you're told. Go to work, run up your credit cards, be nice and smile and don't talk back. Like bein' slowly smothered.

[ She really, really hated life before the whole world fell apart. There only seemed to be a dead-end life wasted because she didn't have money or power to escape it all. And then everyone started to drop dead and she was left to discover how great life could be when you weren't trapped in the rat race. ]

The society we're makin', it's about being who you are down in your soul, and not apologizing for it.

[gynvael]

[ He's listening, and the more she speaks, the easier it is to notice he only vaguely seems aware of what she means. Their worlds are simply too different. Besides, what society would he have even experienced, in his world or hers? Ones made by those who want nothing to do with his kind except when they find a monster they fear more? He's lived his entire life outside of it all—not by choice, but nor does he desire otherwise. It's been too many decades for him to entertain the thoughts of belonging that might've lurked in his younger days. ]

I wouldn't know. [ He bounces the ball back. ] I've monsters and a horse in mine.

[ In theory. But when it is that simple, it feels like that's all he needs. All he really wants—without princesses, without wishes. Without Destiny. In some ways, if he'd been here alone—if Jaskier and Yennefer hadn't been dragged in alongside him—he might've considered the steady predictable days in these cells a short reprieve from all the shit spiralling out back on the Continent. ]