✼ 1st zap | action ✼ forward-dated to the morning of 9/18

[lightningcute]

[Luceti, behold! There is a young girl sleeping in the plaza fountain today. Yes, in the fountain, her back propped against the rim and her white New Feather dress bobbing in the water. Her head is resting on her journal as though it were a pillow

Comments

[justicereigns]

Whoa kid, are you all right?

[Alright starts taking off his jacket to give to her until he can get her to something better.]

[lightningcute]

[Pao-lin's all right, more or less. Just, um, sleeping. So you might need to poke her a bit.]

[justicereigns]

[Lightly nudges.]

Hey kid...

1/???

[lightningcute]

[Pao-lin grimaces, her nose wrinkling as she smells the cigar smoke coming from Smoker.]

2/???

[lightningcute]

[Slowly, she comes to...]

DONE

[lightningcute]

[...and kind of freaks out a little bit when she sees him.]

Aaah! Who are you? [Her eyes dart around.] And where am I? And why am I wearing this?!

XD cute

[justicereigns]

You're in Luceti. You woke up in the fountain. Are those wings new to you?

[lightningcute]

Wings...? [That's when she notices 'em.] Aaah! Why do I have these? [So much to freak out about, so little time.]

[justicereigns]

New Feather then. Welcome to Luceti. There's a whole spiel that goes with it, but I'm shi-- terrible at that sort of thing.

I'm Smoker. [Offers a handshake and looks around for her journal.]

[lightningcute]

I'm Pao-lin. [She takes the hand and shakes it firmly, like Natasha had taught her to do when greeting potential sponsors and valuable business connections for Odysseus Communication.] Why am I in this Luceti place?

[justicereigns]

[Talk about getting to the heart and the hardest question to answer.]

It's... complicated. [Does he call it a kidnapping and risk panicking her? This is why he doesn't do this often.] People are taken from their worlds and brought here and no one's completely clear why. The Malnosso are kind of confusing about it, and probably lying. Or mixed up themselves about why. It's easier to answer the "what."

This is a different world. They do experiments called "Shifts" every so often, given people these useless wings, and otherwise leave us in this village and general island. It's impossible to leave, people will all manner of superpowers have tried, and it's sometimes dangerous as they call people off to a draft; regardless of lack of skill or not, they even take cats with them. And animals can talk here.

[lightningcute]

N-no way...that's ridiculous! [Yup. That's about all the reaction she can muster at the moment. Where does she even begin to start with trying to untangle that mess?]

[justicereigns]

Yeah... pretty much. Welcome to Luceti.

[He is the best at this. And still looking for her journal. Oh, there it is. He holds out a hand for it.] Here can I see the journal? I'll get you to something that shows what I mean.

[lightningcute]

Uh...okay. [Pao-lin fetches it from the rim of the fountain and hands it to Smoker. She steps out of the fountain and proceeds to dry off her dress (ugh, a dress) as best as she can.]

[justicereigns]

[Flips it open to this and bookmarks it.] Here this explains most things.

Want to get your normal clothes? Or just other ones? [Since she's soaked.]

[lightningcute]

Oh, could I really get my old clothes back? [plz plz plz, that tracksuit is like her favoritest thing ever]