here comes your man (open, intro post)
((I have decided to elide the inevitable "I'm on a space station? What's that? Why is T-Pain here, and why am I wearing this nautical-themed pashmina afghan?" sequence.
Scenario I/II is a set piece. Scenarios III and IV invite response, if anyone feels so moved!))
I. A pod begins to shake.
Thumping and muffled outcry ensue, the words mostly indistinct from within the pod - something about knicker-weasels? Abruptly the pod disgorges its inhabitant, who reels away, almost as alarmed by this sudden freedom as he'd been to find himself confined, barely finding his footing on the slick and unfamiliar floor. It doesn't help that the man is flailing about with a very long staff, one that could barely have fit in the pod to begin with.
He staggers. His boots find purchase at last, and taking a practised combat stance, he swings the staff in an arc before him. Wicked stalagmites of ice thrust forth from the air the staff has cut, describing a spiked curve that serves double duty as shield and makeshift cheval de frise.
"I'll show you why mages are feared," he grits out, reflexive battle-cry, but there isn't any threat visible after all to meet this peremptory defiance, and the panicked energy has already started to bleed out of his voice. His shoulders stoop.
He closes his eyes, winces.
He is clearly very, very tired. He fumbles at his belt for a pouch, finds it empty. "Maker's bloody balls." He sounds both profoundly unsurprised and perversely disappointed to lack whatever it is he was fumbling after.
"Inconvenient," he mutters, apparently to himself, after a moment of utter silence in the vicinity (no hordes stamping down the corridor to assault him, no whistle of arrow past his ears). "Not to mention embarrassing. To think I pride myself on my staying power." He's at a disadvantage, starting off in a stage of thorough depletion, without time to regenerate much energy, nor any corpses around to syphon some off. He scans the empty corridor. Kicks the side of the pod, experimentally.
Sighs.
"What now?"
II. A disheveled head peeps round the bend at the end of the corridor. "Keep it down! You're harshing our buzz."
The unpodded man blinks. "I beg your pardon?"
Ten minutes later, he's been ushered into a hippie hotbox. He is informed that this is "orientation!," though the program is quite obviously informal, almost certainly unsanctioned, and definitely unplanned. A very voluble and reasonably pretty young woman who hasn't washed in weeks is eager to tell him all about living in outer space, which he gathers is the Void. That makes him laugh. "Doesn't feel like the Void much to me. Shouldn't there be, I don't know, demons to scourge our unrepentant flesh?" Which gets him scolded, as apparently what he has said may cause someone to take a bad trip.
For some reason, he keeps refusing the hits offered him off the pipe that's going around, although he strenuously insists that they should go on and enjoy themselves, don't mind him. He shares that his name is Anders, and no one asks for any more detail than that. "People are in and out of pods all the time," he is informed. "You're welcome to share whatever we have! Share and share alike!"
"Fantastic. Wake me when it's time to frolic amongst the wildflowers," mumbles Anders, who is now fairly certain he's dreaming. Pity the dream has to be about a commune of humans who wish they were Dalish. He can't complain, as it could be far worse, but there are so many better things he could dream about, given the choice, given the will to try.
Shortly thereafter, he is fast asleep, dreaming, and not about the Dalish. Grey Warden dreams again. The resulting sleeptalking (sleep-shouting?) poses too great a threat to the hippies' remaining buzz. The most sober of the lot is delegated to remove Anders from their presence to someplace more out-of-the-way. He's deposited in a nest of someone's patchouli-sodden sheets.
He stays there for the next three days.
III. He knows his way around now, more or less. All right, he's beginning to learn his way around. He's got a sense of what is what.
Only he has a curious resistance to using the network.
"It's like Merrill's mirror," he insists. "Tell me this is not powered by blood magic." And he inspects the whole terminal, as if he's certain he'll find a little sticker somewhere on it that says Blood Magic Inside! Then, of course, he has to tell his hippie guide all about blood magic, and the different types of mages, and what sorts of temptations might lead a mage to blood magic, and ooh, is that a cat someone has? No, that's just someone's attempt to knit a scarf, and they're going around looking like they've got a big fuzzball wrapped about their neck? What a tease.
Someone sticks a post-it note on Anders' back. It says Ask me about mages! To show there are no hard feelings, a flower is drawn under the instruction, and a little smiley face.
(Pose: Anders is wandering around with a post-it stuck to his back. He's also carrying a huge fuck-off staff. Feel free to harass him about either one.)
IV. Like any reasonable person, he gravitates toward the bar. Sometimes he even drinks, though other nights he can't bring himself to imbibe and it has nothing to do with the vile taste of the brickquer. Mostly, he chats with strangers, casually networking with an eye toward new intelligence. He knows the Fay'lia are doing grave injustice, and he knows this station has involvement in the resistance.
He knows now there's a revolution afoot.
He's constitutionally incapable of sitting this one out.
(Pose: You're in the bar. So is Anders. Tell me whether you'd be more likely to approach him, or vice versa, and we'll go from there.)
Scenario I/II is a set piece. Scenarios III and IV invite response, if anyone feels so moved!))
I. A pod begins to shake.
Thumping and muffled outcry ensue, the words mostly indistinct from within the pod - something about knicker-weasels? Abruptly the pod disgorges its inhabitant, who reels away, almost as alarmed by this sudden freedom as he'd been to find himself confined, barely finding his footing on the slick and unfamiliar floor. It doesn't help that the man is flailing about with a very long staff, one that could barely have fit in the pod to begin with.
He staggers. His boots find purchase at last, and taking a practised combat stance, he swings the staff in an arc before him. Wicked stalagmites of ice thrust forth from the air the staff has cut, describing a spiked curve that serves double duty as shield and makeshift cheval de frise.
"I'll show you why mages are feared," he grits out, reflexive battle-cry, but there isn't any threat visible after all to meet this peremptory defiance, and the panicked energy has already started to bleed out of his voice. His shoulders stoop.
He closes his eyes, winces.
He is clearly very, very tired. He fumbles at his belt for a pouch, finds it empty. "Maker's bloody balls." He sounds both profoundly unsurprised and perversely disappointed to lack whatever it is he was fumbling after.
"Inconvenient," he mutters, apparently to himself, after a moment of utter silence in the vicinity (no hordes stamping down the corridor to assault him, no whistle of arrow past his ears). "Not to mention embarrassing. To think I pride myself on my staying power." He's at a disadvantage, starting off in a stage of thorough depletion, without time to regenerate much energy, nor any corpses around to syphon some off. He scans the empty corridor. Kicks the side of the pod, experimentally.
Sighs.
"What now?"
II. A disheveled head peeps round the bend at the end of the corridor. "Keep it down! You're harshing our buzz."
The unpodded man blinks. "I beg your pardon?"
Ten minutes later, he's been ushered into a hippie hotbox. He is informed that this is "orientation!," though the program is quite obviously informal, almost certainly unsanctioned, and definitely unplanned. A very voluble and reasonably pretty young woman who hasn't washed in weeks is eager to tell him all about living in outer space, which he gathers is the Void. That makes him laugh. "Doesn't feel like the Void much to me. Shouldn't there be, I don't know, demons to scourge our unrepentant flesh?" Which gets him scolded, as apparently what he has said may cause someone to take a bad trip.
For some reason, he keeps refusing the hits offered him off the pipe that's going around, although he strenuously insists that they should go on and enjoy themselves, don't mind him. He shares that his name is Anders, and no one asks for any more detail than that. "People are in and out of pods all the time," he is informed. "You're welcome to share whatever we have! Share and share alike!"
"Fantastic. Wake me when it's time to frolic amongst the wildflowers," mumbles Anders, who is now fairly certain he's dreaming. Pity the dream has to be about a commune of humans who wish they were Dalish. He can't complain, as it could be far worse, but there are so many better things he could dream about, given the choice, given the will to try.
Shortly thereafter, he is fast asleep, dreaming, and not about the Dalish. Grey Warden dreams again. The resulting sleeptalking (sleep-shouting?) poses too great a threat to the hippies' remaining buzz. The most sober of the lot is delegated to remove Anders from their presence to someplace more out-of-the-way. He's deposited in a nest of someone's patchouli-sodden sheets.
He stays there for the next three days.
III. He knows his way around now, more or less. All right, he's beginning to learn his way around. He's got a sense of what is what.
Only he has a curious resistance to using the network.
"It's like Merrill's mirror," he insists. "Tell me this is not powered by blood magic." And he inspects the whole terminal, as if he's certain he'll find a little sticker somewhere on it that says Blood Magic Inside! Then, of course, he has to tell his hippie guide all about blood magic, and the different types of mages, and what sorts of temptations might lead a mage to blood magic, and ooh, is that a cat someone has? No, that's just someone's attempt to knit a scarf, and they're going around looking like they've got a big fuzzball wrapped about their neck? What a tease.
Someone sticks a post-it note on Anders' back. It says Ask me about mages! To show there are no hard feelings, a flower is drawn under the instruction, and a little smiley face.
(Pose: Anders is wandering around with a post-it stuck to his back. He's also carrying a huge fuck-off staff. Feel free to harass him about either one.)
IV. Like any reasonable person, he gravitates toward the bar. Sometimes he even drinks, though other nights he can't bring himself to imbibe and it has nothing to do with the vile taste of the brickquer. Mostly, he chats with strangers, casually networking with an eye toward new intelligence. He knows the Fay'lia are doing grave injustice, and he knows this station has involvement in the resistance.
He knows now there's a revolution afoot.
He's constitutionally incapable of sitting this one out.
(Pose: You're in the bar. So is Anders. Tell me whether you'd be more likely to approach him, or vice versa, and we'll go from there.)